Meta removes disputed crawling and AI-training language from its commercial terms
Meta removed language from its Commercial Terms that said content from business-linked sites could be used to develop, research, and train company products.
AT A GLANCE
Key points
- The disputed clause was removed from Meta’s Commercial Terms on October 17
- Experts had interpreted the earlier wording as potentially granting broad crawling rights
- Meta says the provisions applied only to ads and business products
- The company says robots.txt preferences remain valid
What is changing?
On October 17, Meta removed language from its Commercial Terms stating that content from domains and pages associated with businesses could be used to develop, research, and train company products. Legal experts had argued that the earlier wording could be interpreted as broad permission to crawl sites, including news publishers.
In a statement reported by The Verge and TechCrunch, Meta said the consolidated crawling provisions applied only to ads and business products, did not change how its web crawlers operate, and did not create rights that override robots.txt preferences. The current official terms page was blocked behind a login during review, but both publications independently reported the removed clause and the same company clarification.
The change does not establish that Meta unlawfully used website content for AI training. The news is that the company removed wording that had created a broad interpretation risk and clarified that the scope concerned ads and business products.
Explore the original sources
Source date: 18 October 2026.
Published by AI Radar: 19 Oct 2026, 21:08 (Istanbul, UTC+3).
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