Meta removed training from the crawling clause in its upcoming Commercial Terms. The permission to crawl sites tied to business users is still in place.

Meta has removed training from the crawling clause in its new Commercial Terms, which take effect Oct. 30. The permission to crawl websites associated with a business’s products or services is still in the agreement.

The revised clause connects crawling to advertising and business products, as well as to the integrity and security of Meta’s products. Because the terms apply to any business use of Meta’s products, they also cover companies that manage a Facebook Page without buying ads.

Nieman Lab reported the revision on Oct. 17, two days after the outlet published legal experts’ view that the original wording could support an argument that Meta may scrape news sites for AI training. I covered the original terms on Oct. 16.

The European Publishers Council objected to the original wording before the revision, and the UK’s News Media Association condemned it in an Oct. 16 statement.

The original clause, as printed in Nieman Lab’s first report, said Meta “may use any content” it collected “to provide, develop, improve, research, train, and maintain the integrity of” its products, services and features under the Commercial Terms.

” A parenthetical says those include products that help a business create and deliver ads and connect it with interested users. The clause keeps an integrity purpose, now worded as maintaining “the integrity and security of” Meta’s products.

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