Meta reportedly removes “train” from commercial terms and rewrites scraping language

Training language removed while development permission remains

According to the account, Meta revised commercial terms scheduled to take effect on October 30 after criticism of language concerning content from websites linked on business pages. Meta said the consolidated crawling terms apply to its ads and business products and do not change how it uses web crawlers. Legal experts cited in the account said the remaining permission to develop business products may still be broad, and Meta did not add a commitment to honor robots.txt instructions.

The earlier terms reportedly allowed Meta to use “any content” from websites linked on business pages to provide, develop, improve, research, train, and maintain the integrity of Meta products, services, or features.

The revised terms reportedly remove “train,” replace “any content” with language about periodically pulling website updates, and describe uses tied to advertising and business products.

Changing the wording removes an explicit training reference but may not settle concerns about the scope of permission granted by businesses that link their websites to Meta pages.