Meta’s new terms may allow it to train AI on news sites for free
- Who
- Meta
- What
- updates its commercial terms to authorize crawling and use of content from websites associated with business accounts
What happened
Meta’s commercial terms taking effect October 30th may authorize AI training on websites associated with businesses using its platforms, according to Nieman Lab’s reporting cited by The Verge. Legal experts say the terms could let Meta argue that contractual permission overrides blocking instructions such as robots.txt. Meta disputes that interpretation, saying its crawler practices are unchanged and the update concerns product information for ad and content recommendations.
Reported by 2 sources
The story so far
Meta has updated its commercial terms, effective October 30, to authorize crawling and use of content from websites associated with business accounts, prompting a dispute over whether the permissions extend to AI training on publishers’ sites. The terms cover businesses promoting content across Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger and say Meta can use associated website content to “develop, improve, research,” and “train” its AI products. Businesses cannot opt out of the terms while continuing commercial use of Meta’s services; the terms direct those that disagree to stop that use. Legal experts cited in the reporting said the language could let Meta argue that contractual permission overrides website blocking instructions such as robots.txt, though whether courts would enforce that interpretation is unclear. Ars Technica found that the update grants broader permissions than Meta’s existing advertising terms. Meta disputes the broad AI-training interpretation, saying the update concerns product information for advertising and content recommendations, its crawler practices are unchanged, and content owners can still block crawling through robots.txt.
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