GoKawiilMeta's updated commercial terms claim rights to scrape partner business sites for AI training
Meta is updating its commercial and self-serve ad terms, effective October 30th, with language authorizing it to deploy web crawlers and bots on domains "associated" with businesses using its advertising platforms, including news publishers. The terms state Meta can use that content to develop, improve, research, and train its AI products. Meta spokesperson Daniel Roberts says the move simply consolidates existing ad terms and denies any change to how the company uses web crawlers.
GoKawiil's interpretation of the reporting above, not reported fact.
Legal experts cited by Nieman Lab suggest the broad wording could let Meta argue its commercial terms override other blocking signals, such as a publisher's robots.txt file, potentially letting it bypass licensing deals meant to restrict AI training on news content. If that interpretation holds, publishers who merely advertise or maintain business pages on Meta's platforms could unknowingly grant it scraping rights far beyond typical ad relationships, intensifying tension between tech platforms and media companies over AI data sourcing.
- Meta's new terms, effective October 30th, authorize crawling and scraping of sites tied to business accounts for AI training purposes.
- Legal experts warn the terms could let Meta override robots.txt blocking instructions and licensing agreements.
- Meta spokesperson Daniel Roberts disputes this reading, saying the change only consolidates existing commercial terms.
Source: theverge.com — Emma Roth, 2026-10-16
Published there as: “Meta’s new terms may allow it to train AI on news sites for free”
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