Meta cuts AI-training sentence from web-crawling clause

What happened: Meta removed a sentence from its pending commercial terms that let it use content from business-linked websites to train AI. Unite.AI reported the change on 17 October, after publishers objected.

The details: An archived capture from 16 October shows the original clause. It said: "Meta may use any content from such domains, web pages, or URLs to provide, develop, improve, research, train". A capture from the early hours of 17 October shows the revision. The verb "train" no longer appears in the provision.

The catch: Crawling is still allowed. Meta, or anyone acting for it, can use "web scrapers, bots, robots, spiders, crawlers, and user agents" to "access, index, cache, analyze, collect, retrieve, or crawl" business users' domains and pages.

The numbers: The stated purpose is now to "provide, develop, improve, research, and maintain advertising and business products", and to maintain the integrity and security of Meta products. The terms still take effect on 30 October 2026.

The context: Other edits shorten the licence section for shared content and delete the sentence about helping users create and deliver ads. The Self-Serve Ad Terms preview carries the same revised clause. Product Catalog Terms are now folded into the Commercial Terms, and Ad Creative Generative AI Terms into the Self-Serve Ad Terms.

Who's affected: Publishers and other businesses whose domains are linked to Meta accounts. News/Media Alliance president and CEO Danielle Coffey called the terms "outrageous and probably illegal" and said they could not be implemented on 30 October.

In their words: Meta spokesperson Andy Stone said the update "was not about scraping news sites". He said there was no change to how Meta uses web crawlers, and that content owners can use robots.txt flags. Both statements came on 16 October.

Why it matters: The edit removes the explicit AI-training language from the clause. The broad crawling and collection rights stay in place.

What's next: Meta has not said it changed the text. Unite.AI infers the edit from archive captures. The revised terms are due to take effect on 30 October.