Meta changes terms that raised concerns over scraping publisher websites

Meta has revised its commercial terms after wording around website crawling raised concerns that content from business websites could be used to train its AI models. The latest version removes the word “train” and limits the stated use of collected material to Meta’s advertising and business products.

The change comes as publishers are becoming more careful about how AI companies use their work. An Axios analysis of 102 major U.S. publishers found that 42% block AI training crawlers, compared with 25% that block crawlers used for AI search.

Why the wording raised alarms

Meta’s earlier terms allowed automated crawlers to collect content from websites associated with business accounts. More importantly, the company said that material could be used to “provide, develop, improve, research, train, and maintain the integrity of” Meta products. The revised version removes “train” and instead says the content can be used to “provide, develop, improve, research, and maintain advertising and business products.”

Legal experts speaking to Nieman Lab raised concerns over how broadly the earlier wording could be interpreted and whether it could give Meta permission to use content from publisher websites for AI training. Meta has pushed back on that interpretation, saying the terms were meant for its advertising and business products, not to create a new way to scrape news sites for AI training.

The ability to crawl those websites is still part of the terms. Meta says site owners can continue setting their scraping preferences through robots.txt, although legal experts note that the revised terms do not explicitly require Meta to follow those instructions.

Publishers want more control over AI training

Meta has already faced similar concerns over how it uses public content for AI training. The company uses public Facebook and Instagram posts for training in some regions, and users have previously reported problems when trying to object to their data being used.

Publishers are also looking for ways to get paid when AI companies use their work. For example, Amazon has reportedly explored a marketplace where media companies could license content directly to AI firms, while similar licensing deals are becoming more common across the industry.