Meta suspends planned updates to commercial data usage terms
Meta has indefinitely postponed changes to its commercial terms that would have expanded the company’s ability to use external website data for AI training.
Meta confirmed it is pausing a planned update to its commercial terms following widespread criticism. The proposed changes would have required Meta Business account holders to permit the company to scrape and use content from external websites linked on Facebook for the purpose of training artificial intelligence models.
A company spokesperson stated that the update is suspended to allow for further engagement with stakeholders. Current terms of service remain in effect while the company reviews its approach.
The policy drew scrutiny from legal experts and news publishers who warned the language was overly broad. Critics suggested the move could have allowed Meta to bypass traditional scraping protocols, such as robots.txt files, potentially enabling the company to harvest large volumes of content without licensing agreements. The suspension marks a retreat for Meta as it faces ongoing industry pressure regarding data ownership and the training of generative AI systems.