Meta Removes Terms That Sparked AI Training and Web Scraping Fears
Meta removes disputed business terms that appeared to allow publisher website scraping for AI training, saying its web crawler practices remain unchanged.
Summary
Meta recently revised its commercial terms to claim it could use content from a business account’s domains, web pages or URLs to provide, develop, improve, research, train and protect its products and services. Legal experts warned the unusually broad provision appeared to permit Meta to scrape publishers’ websites for AI model training whenever they held Meta business accounts.
By October 17, 2026, Meta had removed the provision. A spokesperson maintained the update never changed Meta’s web crawling practices, while the company said the consolidated crawling terms applied only to advertising and business products and had now been clarified. The reversal comes after Meta defeated a prominent copyright infringement lawsuit in 2025, although other cases against Meta and additional AI companies remain active.
Positives
- Meta removed the disputed provision by October 17, 2026, reducing uncertainty for publishers with business accounts.
- Meta clarified that the consolidated crawling terms applied only to its advertising and business products.
- Meta says the contractual update never changed how its web crawlers operate.
- Meta defeated a prominent lawsuit alleging copyright infringement in 2025.
Risks & concerns
- The withdrawn language claimed broad rights to use content from business account domains, web pages and URLs.
- Legal experts believed the provision could authorize scraping publishers’ websites to train Meta’s AI models.
- Other copyright cases against AI companies, including Meta, remain active.
- The initial wording created uncertainty despite Meta’s insistence that its actual crawling practices had not changed.