Meta is delaying its controversial new business terms amid scraping concerns
The new terms were supposed to take effect on October 30.
Meta's controversial new commercial terms of use won't be taking effect on October 30 after all. In an email sent to Reuters and Fast Company, a spokesperson said that the company was extending the effective date of its updated Commercial Terms and Self-Serve Ad Terms to November 20 to allow more time to explain to partners and stakeholders what is changing.
Scraping and AI Training Concerns
The company previously shared a planned update to its terms with language saying that Meta would have the right to use web scrapers and automated tools to access, index, cache, analyze, collect, retrieve, or crawl domains, web pages, or URLs associated with business accounts. The updated terms also stated that Meta may use content from such sources to develop, improve, research, train, and maintain the integrity of Meta products and services.
After publishers and other businesses raised concerns, the company changed its language to remove the reference to AI training. Since then, potentially affected entities have submitted complaints to antitrust authorities about the updated terms. The News Media Alliance, which represents thousands of news media organizations in the United States and in Canada, also sent the company an open letter, demanding that it withdraw its revised terms of use before October 30.
Robots.txt Clarification
Meta added in its statement that it will explain to its partners how it uses its web crawlers and make it clear that content owners and publishers will be able to use robots.txt. The plain text file will be able to signal preferences to crawlers and AI bots and stop them from indexing content, though questions remain regarding whether automated crawlers consistently respect these instructions.
