Meta drops clause that let it use business websites to train its products
Legal experts had called the line in Meta's updated commercial terms a remarkable provision. The company says its web crawling has not changed.
Key points
- Meta's updated terms said it could use any content from a business account's websites to train its products.
- That provision has now been removed from the terms.
- Meta says the change does not alter how it uses web crawlers.
Meta has removed a line from its commercial terms that would have allowed it to use material from businesses’ websites to improve and train its products, after the wording drew alarm from legal experts.
The company recently consolidated the terms that govern businesses using its advertising and business tools. The new version said Meta could “use any content from [a business account’s] domains, web pages, or URLs” to improve and train its products. Legal experts described it as a remarkable provision, because it reached beyond what businesses post on Meta’s apps to material on their own websites.
That language has now been taken out. Meta has not said when the change was made or whether any content was used under the clause while it stood.
The terms apply to advertisers, brands and other businesses that run pages and campaigns on Meta’s platforms. Meta said the wording never signalled a change in how it collects material from the web. “The crawling terms we consolidated only applied to our ads and business products,” the company said in a statement. “It does not change how Meta uses web crawlers.”
The episode lands at a sensitive moment for AI companies over training data. Meta defeated a high-profile copyright lawsuit over AI training last year, but other cases against AI developers, Meta among them, are still being fought in court.