Meta has officially removed AI training from the crawling clause found in its new Commercial Terms, which are set to take effect on Oct. 30. Search Engine Journal reports that permission to crawl websites associated with a business's products or services remains in the agreement, following pushback from publishing groups and legal experts.
Key takeaways
- Meta removed the word train from the crawling purpose in its revised Commercial Terms.
- The European Publishers Council and the UK's News Media Association objected to the original wording.
- Meta spokesperson Daniel Roberts stated that the update does not change how Meta uses web crawlers.
- Legal experts argue that the revised text remains broad enough to allow extensive data scraping.
What changed in the Meta crawl clause?
The original clause stated that Meta could use any collected content to provide, develop, improve, research, train, and maintain the integrity of its products. Search Engine Journal notes that the revised text allows crawling to provide, develop, improve, research, and maintain advertising and business products. A parenthetical clarifies that these include tools helping businesses create ads and connect with interested users.
Meta continues to use automated software and test credentials to gather information from websites and retrieve updates. As of Oct. 19, the UK English preview for the Self-Serve Ad Terms still contained the previous statement including training, while the U.S. English version did not. The new language does not reference robots.txt directly, though Meta told Nieman Lab that the updates do not override robots.txt preferences.
What do legal experts say about Commercial Terms?
Legal professionals raised concerns even after the revision. Matt Topic from Loevy & Loevy stated that develop is broad enough to include training. Cornell Law School professor James Grimmelmann pointed out that the edit does nothing to restrict the language associated with a business's products or services, which could let Meta scrape entire sites. Benjamin Sobel from the University of Wisconsin noted that following robots.txt signals is voluntary and does not grant an enforceable legal right.
What happens next?
Publishers, business owners, and anyone managing a Facebook Page without buying ads are affected by these terms, as they apply to any business use of Meta products. The revised terms take effect on Oct. 30. Businesses should review the updated preview before that date and check how their robots.txt file handles each individual Meta crawler.
Frequently asked questions
Meta's new Commercial Terms take effect on Oct. 30, according to the updates reviewed by Search Engine Journal.
Meta removed the word train from the crawling clause in its revised Commercial Terms after facing objections from publishing groups.
Nieman Lab reported on the revision two days after publishing legal experts' views on the wording, following objections from the European Publishers Council and the UK's News Media Association.
Meta spokesperson Daniel Roberts told The Verge that the update does not change how Meta uses web crawlers and clarified that the terms only apply to ads and business products.
Businesses can use robots.txt to control which areas of their website they want crawled, as Meta lists separate crawlers for AI training and Meta AI search.
Based on reporting by Search Engine Journal. Read the original article
