Meta’s revised commercial terms will allow the company to use automated tools to access, copy and index websites linked to advertisers’ products, with the changes set to take effect on October 30, 2026.
The updated terms add a provision to Section 1 of Meta’s Commercial Terms, permitting the company to crawl websites, store copies of their content and use that information to train its products. The change applies to businesses using Meta’s commercial services, with continued use of those services counting as acceptance of the revised terms.
Meta has said the update is intended to improve product recommendations and advertising content on its platforms, rather than enable the scraping of news websites.
“This update is designed to make sure we’re able to pull accurate information about products for sale on third-party websites when making on-platform ad and content recommendations, not about scraping news sites,” Meta spokesperson Andy Stone said on October 16, according to PPC Land.
However, the revised wording has raised concerns among publishers and digital media organisations about how broadly the company could exercise these rights.
Jason Kint, chief executive of Digital Content Next, an industry association representing digital content companies, argued that the terms appeared to give Meta the right to scrape websites across the open internet. Media and intellectual property lawyer Matt Topic said publishers should assume the provision could be enforceable, although its legal standing remains uncertain.
The changes do not explicitly address the role of the robots.txt protocol, which website owners commonly use to communicate crawling preferences to automated bots. The terms also do not offer a partial opt-out, according to PPC Land’s analysis.
Different approaches to AI content access
Meta’s move comes as technology companies face growing scrutiny over how they obtain online content to develop and improve artificial intelligence systems.
Some companies are negotiating licensing agreements with publishers, while others face disputes over the use of copyrighted material.
UK publisher Reach, which owns titles including the Daily Express and Daily Star, has agreed to a two-year deal with Google that gives the technology company expanded rights to use its news content for an AI pilot and experimental features. The financial terms have not been disclosed.
Reach is also in talks with Amazon, Google, Meta and Microsoft, but has sent OpenAI a cease-and-desist letter over what it describes as unauthorised scraping of its content.
Meanwhile, CNN has joined Google’s news AI pilot through a multiyear partnership that includes content rights for experimental generative AI features.
The approaches highlight a growing divide in how technology companies secure access to material for AI development: through negotiated agreements with publishers or through terms that businesses accept when using a platform’s services.
Concerns over consent and data access
The debate also comes amid wider concerns about whether existing consent mechanisms can adequately protect users and businesses as AI systems become more autonomous.
A research paper involving 65 researchers, including 36 affiliated with Google, identified 51 unresolved problems in agentic privacy and security. The researchers argued that traditional consent mechanisms may struggle to keep pace with AI agents that can perform actions faster than people can review them.
Separately, a study commissioned by consent management company Usercentrics found that 16% of surveyed consumers granted AI systems access to their data despite feeling uncomfortable about doing so. Only 7% said they were fully comfortable granting such access, while 58% reported some level of discomfort.
The findings point to a broader challenge for the digital industry as AI systems increasingly rely on information gathered from websites, users and connected services.
For advertisers, Meta’s revised terms raise questions about how their website content may be used beyond its original purpose, particularly when continued use of the platform is treated as acceptance of the new conditions.
