Meta updated its commercial terms to allow scraping of business users' websites for AI training, then removed the most explicit language after backlash.
Meta's updated commercial terms, effective October 30, allow the company to use automated software to crawl and collect content from domains associated with business accounts, and to use that content to develop, improve, research, and train its products, including AI models.
After public criticism, Meta removed the sentence that explicitly allowed it to use scraped content for training, and a spokesperson said the terms were only meant to apply to ads and business products, not to change how Meta uses web crawlers.
Meta spokesperson Andy Stone responded on X to a summary of the report, calling it false and saying the update is meant to ensure Meta can pull accurate information about products for sale on third-party websites for ad and content recommendations, not about scraping news sites.
After backlash, Meta removed the controversial language from the terms, and spokesperson Daniel Roberts said the crawling terms were consolidated and only applied to ads and business products, and that the update does not change how Meta uses web crawlers.
