Meta Scrubs 'Train' from Commercial Terms Amid AI Scraping Backlash
AI-generated image · US National Wire
The tech giant revised its commercial terms of service before an October 30 rollout, but legal experts warn the remaining language still allows for invasive data collection.
Meta has removed the word "train" from its updated commercial terms of service following backlash over policies that critics say allow the company to scrape business websites. The revised terms, which take effect October 30, replace language authorizing Meta to use "any content" to "train" products with a provision allowing the company to "periodically pull updates" to "provide, develop, improve, research, and maintain advertising and business products."
Reporting from Ars Technica indicates that Meta's spokesperson claimed the updates merely consolidate existing crawling terms and do not change how the company uses web crawlers. However, legal experts told Nieman Lab that the revised language remains overly broad. Matt Topic, a media and intellectual property attorney at Loevy & Loevy, noted that the term "develop" is likely broad enough to encompass "train."
Further concerns center on data sovereignty and the use of robots.txt files to block scrapers. University of Wisconsin law professor Benjamin Sobel told Nieman Lab that because complying with robots.txt is voluntary, Meta could potentially rely on the legally enforceable terms of service to ignore those preferences. James Grimmelmann, a professor at Cornell Law School, added that the current language is still "broad enough to drive a truck through."
Industry leaders have condemned the move as an attempt to avoid licensing fees. Danielle Coffey, president and CEO of the News/Media Alliance, called the policy an "abuse of the company's market power," while Theo Bamber, CEO of the United Kingdom News Media Association, described it as a "shameless land grab."