Meta removes controversial clause after AI training concerns

Terms amendment raised alarms over data scraping

Meta recently revised its commercial terms of use, stating that the company may “use any content from a business account’s domains, web pages, or URLs to provide, develop, improve, research, train, and maintain the integrity of” its products and services.

Legal analysts speaking with Nieman Lab described the language as a “remarkable provision” that could have allowed Meta to harvest material from any publisher that holds a Meta business account and feed that material into its AI models. The clause followed a high‑profile copyright lawsuit that Meta won last year, while other litigation targeting AI firms, including Meta, remains active.

Company clarifies scope and removes provision

A Meta representative maintained that the revised terms did not alter the company’s web‑crawling practices. The Verge later reported that the contentious clause had been taken out of the agreement.

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 statement underscores that the updated language was limited to advertising and business tools, and that Meta’s broader crawling behavior remains unchanged.