Meta announced sweeping changes to its commercial terms, effective October 30, allowing the company to train AI on content from business accounts linked to websites, not just social media posts. The update mandates that businesses accept the new terms or stop using Meta services.
The revised terms grant Meta permission to use automated software, including web scrapers and bots, to access, index, and analyze content from domains associated with business accounts. This includes the ability to create test credentials to retrieve information from such domains, which experts warn could bypass paywalls and enable broad scraping.
"You authorize us (or any entity acting on our behalf) to use automated software... to access, index, cache, analyze, collect, retrieve, or crawl the domains..." said Meta’s terms, according to Nieman Lab. The language implies that Meta could use this access to train its AI products, even if the terms do not explicitly mention AI.
Meta’s spokesperson told Nieman Lab that the update is part of a broader effort to streamline its commercial terms, consolidating previously scattered language about crawling and AI use. However, legal experts argue that the changes could be used to justify scraping content from news sites, potentially overriding robots.txt instructions.
The terms raise concerns about potential conflicts with existing licensing agreements, as news publishers could face millions in fees if they must license content for AI training. Legal experts suggest that the changes may resemble antitrust practices, such as 'tying,' where businesses force buyers to purchase additional products.
Meta did not clarify whether the new terms would affect its existing licensing arrangements or how it plans to handle content from news sites. The company still allows news organizations to opt out of scraping and provides instructions on how to block crawling.
Source: arstechnica
