Meta’s new commercial terms take effect on October 30. Business accounts will consent to Meta scraping their websites. The terms cover news publishers and other industries using business accounts. Meta can use scraped content to train its AI products. Publishers cannot opt out without stopping business use. Meta can create test credentials to bypass access controls. Legal experts say the terms may override robots.txt blocks. Meta declined to clarify if test credentials bypass paywalls. The update consolidates prior scattered scraping permissions. Publishers must accept the terms or stop using Meta’s business tools.
What changed
Meta's scraping permissions were scattered across separate terms and did not explicitly cover business account websites.
What it unlocks
Meta can scrape and use content from websites associated with business accounts for AI training.
- October 30, 2026 effective date
- 5 large book publishers in class-action suit
What you need to act on it
- a Meta business account
- continued use of Facebook, Instagram, or WhatsApp after October 30, 2026
Sources