Meta's new terms may allow it to train AI on news sites for free

According to a Nieman Lab report, Meta's new terms appear to allow it to crawl and scrape websites "related" to businesses that use its platforms — including online publishers. The new terms, which take effect on October 30, say Meta can use this external content for "development, improvement, research" and "education".

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This new policy allows Meta to crawl all websites associated with a business account.

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A news writer covering streaming wars, consumer tech, crypto, social media and more. He was previously a writer and editor for MUO.

According to a Nieman Lab report, Meta's new terms appear to allow it to crawl and scrape websites "related" to businesses that use its platforms — including online publishers. The new terms, which take effect on October 30, say Meta can use this external content to "develop, improve, research" and "train" its AI products.

You allow us (or any entity acting on our behalf) to use automated software (such as robots, bots, spiders, crawlers, and user agents) and test credentials to access, index, cache, analyze, collect, retrieve, or crawl the domains, web pages, or addresses available through your Products, or any services through them. AVAILABLE, WEBSITES OR THE SERVICES AVAILABLE THROUGH THEM, OR THE SERVICES WE MAKE RELATED TO YOU. or users' use of Meta Company's products and services, and periodic updates to such domains, web pages or URLs. Meta may use any content from these domains, web pages or URLs to provide, develop, improve, research, educate and maintain the integrity, products, services and features of Meta Company provided under these Terms of Business and other applicable supplemental terms.

Businesses that do not agree to Meta's new policies "may cease all access to or use of our products for business or commercial purposes," the terms say. Last month, Meta launched a new subscription called Meta One, which allows businesses and creators to pay to include links in posts and circles. "In other words, Meta asked users to post links to the same content that was allowed to be crawled for free," says Nieman Lab.

Meta did not immediately respond to The Verge's request for comment.

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