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The Verge AI

Meta's new business terms may let it scrape news sites for AI training

Meta's updated business terms, effective October 30th, reportedly grant it permission to crawl and scrape websites associated with businesses using its platforms, including online publishers, to develop and train AI products. Meta spokesperson Daniel Roberts says the company is only consolidating its commercial and self-serve ad terms. Legal experts cited by Nieman Lab suggest the terms could let Meta argue its commercial agreements supersede blocking instructions like robots.txt.

AI Brief

It signals a potentially significant shift in how AI training data is sourced from publishers, with legal implications for site owners who block crawlers.

Vector illustration of the Meta logo.

Meta's new terms APPear to give it permission to crawl and scrape websites "associated" with the businesses that use its platforms - including online publishers, according to a report from Nieman Lab. The new terms, which go into effect on October 30th, say Meta can use this outside content to "develop, improve, research," and "train" its AI products.

While Meta spokesperson Daniel Roberts says that the company is just "consolidating" its commercial and self-serve ad terms, legal experts tell Nieman Lab that this could allow Meta "to argue its commercial terms supersede other blocking instructions," like a site's robots.txt file. That could …

Read the full story at The Verge.

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