Meta delayed its updated business terms amid complaints to EU and UK regulators. The permission to crawl sites tied to its business users hasn't changed.

Meta has pushed back the effective date of its updated Commercial Terms and Self-Serve Ad Terms from Oct. 30 to Nov. 20. The crawling permission that drew complaints from publishers and advertisers is still in both agreements. The Commercial Terms cover any business use, including managing a Facebook Page.

A Meta spokesperson told Nieman Lab the company is extending the date “to allow more time for us to explain to our partners and stakeholders what’s changing and what’s not.” The spokesperson said that includes how Meta uses web crawlers.

I covered the original terms and Meta’s removal of training from the clause earlier this month.

The U.S. English previews of the Commercial Terms and Self-Serve Ad Terms list Nov. 20 as the effective date. Nieman Lab reported that as of Oct. 23, Meta hadn’t changed the terms except for the date.

The crawling paragraph still lets Meta use automated software and “create test credentials” to crawl pages associated with a business’s products or services, and to periodically pull updates from them. Neither preview mentions robots.txt.

The current Self-Serve Ad Terms, dated Aug. 22, 2025, already let Meta crawl content on an advertiser’s domains for uses that include “research and training” once an ad order is placed.

As of Oct. 25, the UK English, German and French Commercial Terms previews still listed Oct. 30.

The Movement for an Open Web, an advocacy group whose members include advertisers and publishers, has asked the European Commission and the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) to block Meta’s terms with interim measures while they investigate.

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