Meta removed language from its commercial terms on October 17, 2026, following backlash and concerns from legal experts and publishers that the clause permitted unauthorized scraping of news websites to train artificial intelligence models. Legal experts, including Cornell professor James Grimmelmann, warned the terms could supersede robots.txt blocking files. Meta spokespeople Andy Stone and Daniel Roberts clarified that web crawling practices remain unchanged and content owners retain control via robots.txt.
Meta clarifications regarding updated terms
- ▪Meta spokesperson Daniel Roberts confirmed that website content owners can continue using robots.txt files to signal their web crawling preferences to Meta
- ▪Backlash over Meta's commercial terms led Meta to issue a clarifying statement and remove language on October 17, 2026, after updates suggested Meta could scrape business website content to train artificial intelligence models
- ▪Meta vice president of communications Andy Stone and spokesperson Daniel Roberts stated that Meta made no changes to how its web crawlers operate
- ▪Meta spokesperson Daniel Roberts stated on October 17, 2026, that the crawling terms consolidated into Meta's commercial terms for business accounts applied only to Meta ads and business products rather than granting new scraping rights
Publisher and expert concerns over terms
- ▪Legal experts interviewed by Nieman Lab described Meta's updated commercial terms as a remarkable provision that could allow Meta to scrape websites of publishers holding Meta business accounts
- ▪Nieman Lab reported concerns from news organizations and publishers that Meta's initial commercial terms update, later revised on October 17, 2026, allowed scraping commercial account content, news websites, and publisher domains for free artificial intelligence training without explicit permission
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