Meta responds to AI controversy by removing 'train' from business terms

Meta updated its business terms, removing language that had authorized it to use 'any content' from business page sites to 'provide, develop, improve, research, train and maintain' its products. The new terms drop both 'train' and 'any content,' instead allowing Meta to periodically pull updates from business users' sites to 'provide, develop, improve, research and maintain advertising and business products.' A Meta spokesperson confirmed it did not proactively notify users of the change and said the scraping clause applies only to advertising and business products, not to how web crawlers are generally used. Legal experts are unconvinced. Cornell Law professor James Grimmelmann noted that 'develop... advertising and business products' is still broad enough to cover training. University of Wisconsin law professor Benjamin Sobel said robots.txt is a voluntarily followed preference that Meta can ignore unless made legally binding. Most directly affected are site owners and news publishers running business pages on Meta. The UK News Media Association, the European Publishers Council and the US News/Media Alliance have each called on regulators to intervene and block the terms from taking effect on October 30.