GoKawiilMeta revises business-account terms but AI scraping concerns persist, lawyers say
Meta edited the business terms for its platform, removing explicit language saying it could 'train' AI models on content from linked news websites, after publishers objected. The revised terms, effective October 30th, still permit Meta to use scraped content to 'develop' business products, a term attorneys say is undefined and broad.
GoKawiil's interpretation of the reporting above, not reported fact.
Legal experts including Cornell's James Grimmelmann and attorney Matt Topic argue the wording change may be cosmetic, since 'develop' could still cover AI training even without the word 'train' appearing. This suggests publishers relying on robots.txt files to block scraping may still face ambiguity over whether Meta's commercial terms override those signals, a dispute with implications for how AI firms source training data from news sites.
- Meta removed 'train' language from new business terms after publisher backlash.
- Attorneys say the term 'develop' may still let Meta train AI on scraped site content.
- Meta points to robots.txt as the mechanism for publishers to opt out of scraping.
Source: theverge.com — Emma Roth, 2026-10-22
Published there as: “Meta’s AI could still scrape news sites, legal experts say”
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