The short versionMeta's updated Commercial Terms take effect October 30, 2026. As first published, they authorized Meta to use "web scrapers, bots, robots, spiders, crawlers" on domains associated with a business's products or services, and said Meta may use that content to "train" Meta Company Products. Nieman Lab reported there was no opt-out ahead of October 30. Meta's Andy Stone called the reading false and said robots.txt still works. Update: on October 17, Meta removed the training sentence; the crawling permission remains.
Update, October 17: Meta has removed the sentence about using website content to "train" its products. The crawling permission stays. Read the follow-up.
If you run Meta ads or a Facebook Page, you're about to agree to new business terms, and one clause covers your website. Here's what it said, what Meta says, and what to check before October 30.
What happened
Meta's updated Commercial Terms "go into effect on October 30, 2026," according to its terms preview. As first published, Section 1 said businesses authorize Meta to use automated software "(such as web scrapers, bots, robots, spiders, crawlers, and user agents)" on domains "associated with your products or services," and that "Meta may use any content from such domains, web pages, or URLs to provide, develop, improve, research, train, and maintain the integrity of, the Meta Company Products." That sentence is quoted in The Verge.
Ad industry critic Jason Kint wrote on X that it reads as Meta granting itself rights to scrape websites and train its AI once a company uses its services. Nieman Lab reported there was no option for business accounts to opt out ahead of October 30.
Meta's response
Meta's Andy Stone posted on X: "This is false. There's no change to how Meta uses web crawlers. As always, content owners can use robots.txt flags to indicate their preferences."
The details
The only alternative. The terms say: "If you do not agree to the updated terms, you may stop all access or use of our Products" for business or commercial purposes.
Meta's crawlers. Meta's developer page says Meta-ExternalAgent "crawls the web for use cases such as training foundation AI models or improving products by indexing content directly," and: "In order to block these crawlers, add a disallow for the relevant crawler to robots.txt."
Legal questions. Santa Clara University law professor Eric Goldman told The Register: "the language doesn't expressly say that Meta will respect those robots.txt instructions."
Why brands should care
This applies to almost every business on Meta, not only publishers. If your website has content you don't want crawled, robots.txt is your main lever, and it only works if you set it.
What to do
Our suggestions, not legal advice:
- Open yoursite.com/robots.txt before October 30. Decide what meta-externalagent may read and add rules per Meta's developer page.
- Keep private content behind a real login.
- Read the final terms. They changed once already.
Sources
- Meta Commercial Terms preview
- Meta for Developers: Meta Web Crawlers
- Nieman Lab: Meta's new commercial terms will allow the scraping of news sites, legal experts say (Oct 15, 2026)
- The Register: Meta grants itself right to scrape content from business customers (Oct 16, 2026)
- Andy Stone on X (Oct 16, 2026)
- Jason Kint on X
- The Verge: Meta removes language that may have allowed it to scrape news sites (Oct 17, 2026)
FAQ
When do Meta's new Commercial Terms take effect?
October 30, 2026, according to Meta's terms preview page.
Can I opt out of Meta's new Commercial Terms?
Nieman Lab reported there was no option for business accounts to opt out ahead of October 30. The terms say that if you don't agree, you may stop using Meta's products for business or commercial purposes.
Does robots.txt still block Meta's crawlers?
Meta says yes. Its developer page says to add a disallow for the relevant crawler to robots.txt, and Andy Stone said content owners can use robots.txt flags to indicate their preferences.
