Meta has clarified its commercial terms of use, removing language that could have given the company permission to scrape and train AI models from any publisher with a Meta business account. This update was met with concerns from legal experts who argued it could allow Meta to scrape any publisher's website and use the content for AI training. However, Meta spokespersons have since stated that the updated terms do not reflect a change in the company's web crawling methods, and the provision has been removed.
Key points
Meta clarified its commercial terms of use, removing language that could have given the c…: Meta clarified its commercial terms of use, removing language that could have given the company permission to scrape and train AI models from any publisher with a Meta business account.
This update was met with concerns from legal experts who argued it could allow Meta to sc…: This update was met with concerns from legal experts who argued it could allow Meta to scrape any publisher's website and use the content for AI training.
Meta spokespersons have since stated that the updated terms do not reflect a change in th…: Meta spokespersons have since stated that the updated terms do not reflect a change in the company's web crawling methods, and the provision has been removed.
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Meta recently updated its commercial terms of use, declaring that the company can “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.
According to legal experts interviewed by Nieman Lab, this looked like a “remarkable provision” that could give Meta permission to scrape the website of any publisher with a Meta business account and use the content to train the company’s AI models. (While Meta defeated a high-profile lawsuit over alleged copyright infringement last year, other cases against AI companies, including Meta, continue.)
However, a Meta spokesperson insisted that the updated terms did not reflect a change in the way Meta crawls the web. And now, The Verge reports that the provision has been removed.
“We’ve heard you and want to clarify: the crawling terms we consolidated only applied to our ads and business products, and we’ve clarified that in the terms themselves,” the company said in a statement. “It does not change how Meta uses web crawlers.”
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