Meta has modified its business account terms following criticism from the publishing industry, but legal scholars contend the revisions do not adequately address concerns about the company’s ability to scrape news websites for artificial intelligence training purposes.
The original terms, set to take effect on October 30th, contained language indicating Meta could use “any content” from associated websites to “develop, research” and “train” its products. Legal experts warned this language could allow Meta to argue that its commercial terms override other blocking mechanisms, such as robots.txt files, which have traditionally instructed web scrapers—including search engines—about what content they may access.
In response to significant pushback from publishers, Meta removed specific references to “training” products using scraped material. However, legal specialists suggest the modified terms remain problematic. One concern centers on the phrase “business product,” which remains undefined and could encompass AI systems under development. Attorneys note that the term “develop” remains sufficiently broad to potentially encompass training activities, leaving open the possibility that Meta could continue utilizing scraped content for machine learning purposes.
Meta has stated that the updated terms are not intended to enable free news content scraping. A company spokesperson indicated that content owners retain the ability to use robots.txt files to signal their preferences and that the revisions do not grant Meta new authority that would override such blocking instructions. Nevertheless, legal experts maintain that the current language in the revised terms may still allow Meta to justify harvesting content from news organizations.
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