Meta Removes AI Training Language From Business Terms After Backlash
After legal experts called the clause a “remarkable provision” that could permit broad publisher-content harvesting for AI training, Meta removed it from its business terms. The company said the change clarifies, rather than alters, how its web crawlers operate.
Meta has removed a provision from its commercial terms of use that legal experts warned could allow the company to scrape publisher websites and use the content to train its AI models.
The clause, added in a recent update to Meta’s business terms, stated that the company 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” Meta products and services. Legal experts interviewed by Nieman Lab described it as a “remarkable provision” that could effectively grant Meta broad permission to harvest content from any publisher operating a Meta business account.
A Meta spokesperson maintained that the updated terms did not reflect any change in how the company crawls the web. Following the criticism, the provision was removed, as first reported by The Verge.
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 episode adds to ongoing scrutiny of Meta’s data practices around AI development. While Meta defeated a high-profile copyright infringement lawsuit last year, other legal cases against the company and other AI developers remain active.
For publishers and businesses with Meta accounts, the removal of the clause may offer some reassurance — though the episode highlights how terms-of-service language can carry significant implications for how companies may use third-party content in AI development.