Meta terms authorize automated crawling for business products

Meta’s updated Commercial Terms apply when someone accesses or uses Meta products for business or commercial purposes.[1] Meta’s definition of covered activity includes advertising or marketing, selling or listing products, developing apps, creating or using product catalogs, and managing a Page.[1] The terms set October 30, 2026, as the effective date.[1] Nieman Lab reported that business accounts had no option to opt out of the new terms before that date.[2]

The revised terms authorize Meta, or an entity acting for it, to use automated software such as crawlers and to create test credentials.[1] They also authorize periodic retrieval of updates from websites associated with a business.[1] Meta’s terms describe using collected website content to provide, develop, improve, research and maintain advertising and business products.[1] The terms therefore provide for automated access and recurring retrieval, rather than describing only a one-time review of a website. Meta says there has been no change to how it uses web crawlers.[3]

The version first reported by Nieman Lab said Meta could use content from the URLs to train.[2] The current terms, as described in the evidence, refer to uses connected to advertising and business products, including development and research.[1] Nieman Lab said the wording could be used to argue that Meta may scrape news-site content and use it to train AI products.[2] The Verge reported Meta’s explanation that the consolidated crawling terms applied only to advertising and business products and were intended to help retrieve accurate product information from third-party websites for recommendations, not to scrape news sites.[4] Meta also said website owners can use robots.txt flags to signal crawling preferences.[3]

Cornell professor James Grimmelmann said the terms could permit training on publishers’ website content and possibly allow some content to be used in competition with them.[2] Attorney Matt Topic said it was unclear whether a court would enforce the provision.[2] The News Media Alliance called the terms outrageous and probably illegal, and described them as withholding access to Meta’s audience unless businesses allow scraping.[5] Meta declined to answer Nieman Lab’s questions about whether test credentials could bypass paywalls or other paid content.[2] Nieman Lab also reported that virtually every news organization has at least one Meta business account.[2]