Meta advertiser terms AI scraping clause

Meta's updated commercial terms, taking effect October 30, originally included language stating it could use content from business accounts' domains and URLs to train and improve its services. Legal experts called this a "remarkable provision" that could authorize Meta to scrape any publisher website linked to a business account, potentially overriding robots.txt files and bypassing licensing fees. Meta first removed that broader language, then specifically dropped the word "train" from the terms after expert criticism, without proactively alerting users to either change. A Meta spokesperson said the company is consolidating its commercial and self-serve ad terms and denied that its use of web crawlers is changing. Despite these revisions, Common Thread reported that the October 30 terms still grant Meta broad rights to crawl advertiser websites and use content for AI model training, make advertisers legally responsible for AI-generated ad content including content Meta's own tools create, and allow Meta to run tests affecting campaign delivery without separate opt-in. Continuing to advertise on Meta after October 30 constitutes acceptance, with no opt-out mechanism available to businesses that want to remain active.