Meta has removed language from its planned commercial terms that appeared to let the company crawl websites linked to business accounts and use their content to train AI systems. The change followed criticism from publishers and legal experts who said the wording could reach news sites.
Meta removes training language
The earlier terms said Meta could use content from associated domains, web pages, or URLs to provide, develop, improve, research, train, and maintain its products. Legal experts told TechCrunch that the wording could have been read as permission to collect material from websites connected to a company’s Meta business account.
Meta said the terms applied to advertising and business products, not a new program to scrape news sites. The company also said the change did not alter how its web crawlers operate. Meta says website owners can use robots.txt preferences to signal whether automated access is allowed.
Terms take effect October 30
The revised Commercial Terms preview is scheduled to take effect on October 30, 2026. It still addresses automated access to websites associated with business products, but no longer includes the disputed reference to using collected content for AI training.
This wording raised uncertainty for news organizations, retailers, advertisers, and other companies that use Meta’s business tools while maintaining their own websites. Those businesses could include companies with websites associated with their products or services.
Publishers face unresolved questions
Removing the sentence narrows what the planned contract appears to say. It does not establish whether Meta previously collected any particular publisher’s content or whether its underlying crawler practices have changed. Those questions remain tied to Meta’s technical policies, individual contracts, and copyright disputes.
The episode also shows why AI companies’ terms of service are receiving greater scrutiny. Contract language can affect how publishers and businesses understand control over material used to build AI products.
References
Ha, A. (2026, October 17). Meta removes language that raised scraping and AI training concerns. TechCrunch. https://techcrunch.com/2026/10/17/meta-removes-language-that-raised-scraping-and-ai-training-concerns/
Meta. (2026, October 17). Meta Commercial Terms preview. https://www.facebook.com/legal/commercial_terms_preview
Meta for Developers. (2026). Meta web crawlers. https://developers.facebook.com/docs/sharing/webmasters/web-crawlers