Meta has put on hold modifications to its commercial and advertising policies that would have granted the company permission to automatically scrape content from websites belonging to businesses using its platforms. The rollout, originally scheduled for November 20, has been suspended indefinitely as the company navigates mounting opposition from news organisations, legal obstacles and government scrutiny, Reuters reported Friday.
The suspended update encompasses four distinct policy frameworks: Meta's Commercial Terms, Product Catalog Terms, Self-Serve Ad Terms and Ad Creative Generative AI Terms. The Commercial Terms apply broadly to any organisation operating Meta's services, including those simply maintaining a Facebook Page.
We're pausing the changes as we continue to engage with stakeholders and take our time to get this right
Meta spokesperson, to Reuters
The proposed terms would have enabled Meta to deploy automated tools to extract and monitor updates from web pages connected to a business. According to legal analysts quoted by Nieman Lab, this harvested material could subsequently be leveraged to develop Meta's artificial intelligence systems.
Meta has characterised the revision as a consolidation of existing crawling permissions previously distributed across multiple policy documents. The company noted that website proprietors retain the ability to restrict Meta's crawler through robots.txt, a standard file used to control bot access to specific pages. However, the policy language itself did not explicitly acknowledge this option.
The implementation date has shifted twice. Meta initially planned to activate the changes on October 30 before postponing to November 20 following complaints from publishers and advertisers to regulators in the European Union and United Kingdom. The company subsequently committed to consulting with news industry representatives before proceeding.
Opposition intensified as the November deadline approached. A court in Norway temporarily suspended the terms following legal action brought by the country's media companies association, Nieman Lab reported, citing broadcaster NRK. Regulatory bodies have maintained close attention to the matter as well. Britain's competition authority indicated it would continue monitoring the terms, while the European Commission disclosed it was examining a complaint submitted by publishers, according to Search Engine Journal.
In the United States, senators Adam Schiff and Marsha Blackburn both sent correspondence to Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg requesting the company abandon the terms in their proposed form.
Meta has not disclosed a timeline for reintroducing the modifications or whether the crawling provisions will undergo revision before resubmission.
Source: The Next Web
