Meta has postponed the rollout of its updated commercial terms which could see advertisers and publishers have their websites scraped.
Meta said it will delay the implementation of its updated commercial terms following concerns raised by the UK and European Union (EU) antitrust authorities.
Publishers and advertisers complained to the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) and the European Commission (EC) claiming Meta’s new terms are anti-competitive.
Under the new terms – initially due to come into effect on 30 October – any user with a business account will automatically have to consent to Meta scraping their websites if they continue to use Facebook, Instagram, or WhatsApp.
Tim Cowen, co-founder of the Movement for an Open Web and leading the complaints, said many businesses have no choice but to use Meta’s services and this update would “force them to sign away the rights to their digital content with no means of opting out”.
Meta has rejected the claims. A spokesperson for the company told Affiliate Leaders: “We are extending the effective date of our updated commercial terms and self-serve ad terms to 20 November to allow more time for us to explain to our partners and stakeholders what’s changing and what’s not – including how Meta uses web crawlers, and the fact that content owners will still be able to use robots.txt to signal preferences.”
The EC has welcomed the delay.
However, the European Publishers Council, in coalition with other groups, is calling on regulators to suspend Meta’s new commercial terms while they carry out an investigation into it.
The group highlighted a lack of contractual safeguards against publishers’ content being exploited, directly or indirectly.
Angela Mills Wade, executive director for the council, told Reuters: “Maintaining a business page or advertising a subscription should not confer general rights over a publisher’s website and archive.
“Users beyond those necessary to provide the specific service requested should require separate, express authorisation from the relevant rightsholder.”
The news comes as publishers ramp up the fight against AI companies using their content without permission to train LLMs.
