{
  "id": 15077340,
  "title": "Meta grants itself right to scrape content from business customers for model training",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/10/16/meta-grants-itself-right-to-scrape-content-from-business-customers",
  "topic": "tech",
  "section": "Tech",
  "published": "2026-10-16T20:00:42.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "The Register",
    "slug": "the-register",
    "url": "https://www.theregister.com/ai-and-ml/2026/10/16/meta-grants-itself-right-to-scrape-content-from-business-customers-for-model-training/5303658"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Meta has announced that it will begin using content from websites associated with its business customers to train AI models and improve its products. The new terms will take effect on October 30, 2026, and apply to at least a million businesses that use Meta's AI agents across various services such as WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram, Facebook, and its advertising platform.\n\nBusinesses using Meta's advertising or marketing services, selling or listing products, developing apps, creating product catalogs, or managing Pages and Groups will be affected. Meta defines business customers as those using ads, marketing messages, product listings, apps, product catalogs, Pages, Groups, or any business product like Ads Manager or the Meta Business Suite.\n\nThe company will use automated software, such as web scrapers, bots, and crawlers, to access and analyze content from these domains and web pages. Meta states that it may periodically pull updates from these sources to train and maintain the integrity of its products, services, and features.\n\nNews/Media Alliance President Danielle Coffey criticized Meta's move as outrageous and potentially illegal, calling it a bad-faith policy and an abuse of the company's market power. She urged businesses with intellectual property and Meta accounts to question the implications of these terms. Law professor Eric Goldman noted that Meta's revised terms raise both procedural and substantive issues, particularly regarding how they apply to businesses that have already established relationships with the company. Goldman expressed skepticism about Meta's intentions, citing the company's history of data harvesting and privacy violations.",
  "summary": "The future is private, the present is plunder",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 3,
    "also_reported_by": [
      {
        "outlet": "Techmeme",
        "title": "Experts say Meta's new terms of use will allow scraping of websites, including news sites, \"associated with\" business accounts on its platforms, with no opt out (Nieman Lab)",
        "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/10/15/experts-say-metas-new-terms-of-use-will-allow-scraping-of-websites",
        "published": "2026-10-15T21:00:48.000Z"
      },
      {
        "outlet": "The Register Science",
        "title": "Meta grants itself right to scrape content from business customers for model training",
        "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/10/16/meta-grants-itself-right-to-scrape-content-from-business-customers-15081842",
        "published": "2026-10-16T20:00:42.000Z"
      }
    ]
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}