Overview
- Journalists and legal experts disclosed in mid‑October that new Commercial Terms would let Meta use automated crawlers and test credentials to collect content from sites linked to business accounts and use that content to develop and train its products.
- Meta revised the clause on October 19 to remove the explicit word "train" and to frame crawling as tied to advertising and business products, and later reporting said the disputed sentence was removed from a preview of the terms.
- Despite the edit, Meta kept access language in earlier revisions that allows automated software and creation of "test credentials," which experts say could let the company register or bypass site barriers and complicate paywall protections.
- Publishers and trade groups say business accounts have no real opt‑out except to stop using Meta’s services, and they have asked regulators in the US, UK and EU to review the terms for copyright, competition and contract fairness.
- The revised terms are scheduled to take effect on October 30 and what to watch next is whether Meta will clarify how it will respect robots.txt rules, limit crawler access, or change the practical rights that site owners must grant.