Meta removes AI-scraping clause from commercial terms after publisher backlash

Meta has removed controversial language from its commercial terms of use that legal experts warned could give the company a blanket right to scrape publisher websites to train its AI models.

The updated terms had declared that Meta could “use any content from [a business account’s] domains, web pages, or URLs to provide, develop, improve, research, train, and maintain the integrity of” its products and services.

Legal experts interviewed by Nieman Lab called it a “remarkable provision” that appeared to let Meta crawl the website of any publisher holding a Meta business account and use the content for AI training. A Meta spokesperson insisted the terms did not reflect any change in how the company crawls the web.

On Friday, The Verge reported the provision had been removed. In a statement, Meta said: “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. It does not change how Meta uses web crawlers.”

The retreat comes as the copyright fight between publishers and AI companies intensifies. Meta defeated a high-profile copyright infringement lawsuit last year, but other cases against AI companies — including Meta — continue.