Meta has removed language from its commercial terms of use that legal experts said could be read as authorizing the company to scrape the websites of any publisher with a Meta business account and feed the content into its AI models. The reversal was reported by The Verge after Nieman Lab first flagged the clause.
The disputed provision said Meta could use any content from a business account's domains, web pages, or URLs to provide, develop, improve, research, train, and maintain the integrity of Meta products and services. Legal experts interviewed by Nieman Lab called it a remarkable provision.
Meta disputed that reading from the start. A company spokesperson said the updated terms did not reflect a change in how Meta crawls the web. In a later statement, the company said the crawling terms it consolidated only applied to its ads and business products and that it had clarified that in the terms themselves.
Key facts
- 01Meta removed language from its commercial terms of use that legal experts said could authorize scraping any business account's website for AI training.
- 02The original clause granted Meta rights to use content from a business account's domains, web pages, or URLs to train and maintain its products.
- 03Meta says the consolidated crawling terms applied only to its ads and business products and did not change how it crawls the web.
- 04Meta defeated a high-profile copyright infringement lawsuit over AI training last year, but other cases against AI companies, including Meta, continue.
The episode lands as AI training rights remain contested in court. Meta defeated a high-profile lawsuit over alleged copyright infringement last year, but other cases against AI companies, including Meta, continue.
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