Meta has postponed the implementation of its updated business terms following significant pressure from news publishers. The company originally planned to introduce the new rules on October 30, but the deadline has been moved to November 20. This extension aims to provide additional time for Meta to clarify its data usage policies to stakeholders.
Publishers expressed concern that the initial terms would grant Meta broad rights to scrape news websites for artificial intelligence training purposes. Although the company subsequently removed specific language regarding AI training from the document, legal experts and industry groups remained skeptical about the protection of their content.
The News/Media Alliance formally requested that CEO Mark Zuckerberg revise the terms, citing potential severe harm to the publishing industry. Similar concerns were raised by digital advertisers and publishers across the European Union and the UK, who sought regulatory intervention to block the changes.
Meta spokesperson Daniel Roberts stated that the delay will be used to explain how the company employs web crawlers. The firm intends to emphasize that content owners retain the ability to use robots.txt files to restrict or manage how their sites are accessed by automated scrapers.
