# Meta Pauses the Business Terms Publishers Said Would Let It Crawl Their Sites for AI, With No New Date

Times of AI Desk · 2026-10-24 · Policy

[https://timesof.ai/2026/10/meta-delays-business-terms-ai-scraping-nov20](https://timesof.ai/2026/10/meta-delays-business-terms-ai-scraping-nov20)

> Updated Nov. 8: Meta has paused planned updates to its Commercial Terms and three related sets of terms, so they will not take effect on November 20, a spokesperson told Reuters on November 6; existing terms remain in effect while Meta consults stakeholders, and no new date was given. Earlier: Britain's Competition and Markets Authority opened a Competition Act investigation into the terms on Oct. 30, which Meta says has no grounds, after Meta had pushed the start date from October 30 to November 20 following publisher objections.

**Updated November 8, 2026:** Meta has paused the terms changes indefinitely. The new section directly below covers it; the October 30 update and the original report follow unchanged.

## November 6: Meta pauses the changes

Meta has paused planned updates to its **Commercial Terms**, **Product Catalog Terms**, **Self-Serve Ad Terms** and **Ad Creative Generative AI Terms**, so the changes will not take effect on **November 20**, the company told Reuters on **Friday, November 6**. "We're pausing the changes as we continue to engage with stakeholders and take our time to get this right. In the meantime, our existing terms remain in effect," a spokesperson said. Meta did not give a new date.

Ars Technica reported the same day that courts in **Brazil** and **Norway** had issued preliminary injunctions against the terms after lawsuits there, citing Nieman Lab. It quoted Theo Bamber, chief executive of the UK's News Media Association, who wrote on LinkedIn that removing the word "train" did little to reassure publishers because "develop" posed the same threat. Ars also reported that Meta's revised terms did not include specific language about respecting robots.txt, again citing Nieman Lab, while Meta has told business page owners its crawling practices are unchanged.

A pause is not a withdrawal, and the CMA investigation described below has not been closed in anything we have read. The fight over who may crawl publishers' pages for AI is also running in court elsewhere: [The New York Times sued Brave](https://timesof.ai/2026/11/nyt-sues-brave-search-api-index-ai-companies-paywall-blocker) this month over a search index it says is sold to AI companies.

### Limits of the November 8 update

- We read Reuters' short report and Ars Technica, not Meta's paused terms or the Brazilian and Norwegian court orders.
- The injunctions and the robots.txt point come from Nieman Lab as cited by Ars Technica; we did not read Nieman Lab.

**Updated October 30, 2026:** Britain's competition regulator has opened a formal investigation into Meta's business terms. The new section directly below covers it; the original report follows unchanged.

## October 30: the CMA opens a case

The UK **Competition and Markets Authority** said on **Friday, October 30** that it has opened an investigation under the Competition Act 1998 into whether Meta's commercial terms for publishers and advertisers amount to an abuse of a dominant position. The CMA said the terms could let Meta collect content from publishers' websites and use it to develop its own products and services, including AI features, without businesses getting a choice over whether or how their content is used.

The terms that Meta planned to revise on November 20 have since been put on hold, the CMA said. Reuters reported that the investigation will first determine whether Meta holds a dominant position in a relevant UK market and, if so, whether the terms abuse it. The CMA said it has not yet decided whether the law has been broken.

"Where a company holds a dominant position, it must not use that position to impose unfair terms," CMA chief executive **Sarah Cardell** said. Meta said there were "no grounds" for an investigation. "We've already committed not to change our terms without consulting publishers and other stakeholders," a Meta spokesperson told Reuters. "We welcome the opportunity to explain our approach to the CMA."

### Limits of the October 30 update

- Opening an investigation is not a finding; the CMA has not set out a timetable for a decision here.
- We have not read Meta's paused terms ourselves.

## The original report

Meta has bought itself three weeks, not changed course: the reports we read say Meta still plans to apply the terms publishers object to, and its explanation leans on robots.txt, which publishers say they cannot fully use against Meta's crawlers. Meta's updated business terms will now take effect on **November 20** instead of **October 30**, The Verge and The Next Web reported on **Friday, October 23**.

## What Meta said

A Meta spokesperson, Daniel Roberts, told The Verge the new date is meant "to allow more time for us to explain to our partners and stakeholders what's changing and what's not." Roberts said the extra time would let Meta explain "how Meta uses web crawlers and the fact that content owners will still be able to use robots.txt to signal preferences."

## Why publishers objected

The Verge reported that the terms appeared to give Meta permission to scrape the websites of businesses that use its platforms and to use that material for AI training. According to The Next Web, the terms cover businesses that use Meta tools such as ads, Facebook Pages or Instagram business accounts, let Meta send crawlers to websites linked to those accounts, and are accepted simply by using those tools.

Meta removed language about "training" from the terms after the first outcry, both outlets reported. The Verge said legal experts argued that change does not rule out AI training, and The Next Web, citing Fast Company, reported that the disputed wording appeared unchanged and that Meta still plans to go ahead.

The News/Media Alliance sent a letter to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Thursday demanding changes, warning of "severe harm" to publishers, The Verge reported. The Next Web said the alliance, which it described as representing more than 2,000 US publishers, argued that publishers cannot really block Meta's crawlers because their ads need them to work. It quoted the letter as saying: "News publishers will be forced into providing their valuable journalism to support the development of products that may be used to compete with them."

## Pressure in Europe

The Verge reported that digital advertisers and publishers in the European Union and the UK urged regulators to force Meta to halt the terms. The Next Web reported that European publishers asked EU and UK regulators on Wednesday to suspend them, and that Britain's competition watchdog has asked Meta to explain them.

## Limits

- We have not read the business terms or the News/Media Alliance letter ourselves; the descriptions above come from The Verge and The Next Web.
- The Next Web attributes the new date to Reuters; we did not read the Reuters report.
- The report that Britain's competition watchdog asked Meta to explain the terms comes only from The Next Web, and we did not find a statement from the regulator.

## Sources

- [The Verge: Meta delays new business terms after publisher pushback on AI scraping (October 23, 2026)](https://www.theverge.com/tech/1017450/meta-business-terms-delayed-ai-scraping)
- [The Next Web: Meta delays its website-crawling terms after a publisher backlash (October 23, 2026)](https://thenextweb.com/news/meta-delays-crawling-terms-publishers)
- [Competition and Markets Authority: CMA opens investigation into Meta's commercial terms (October 30, 2026)](https://www.gov.uk/government/news/cma-opens-investigation-into-metas-commercial-terms)
- [Reuters via CNA: UK's CMA opens investigation into Meta's terms for publishers and advertisers (October 30, 2026)](https://www.channelnewsasia.com/business/uks-cma-opens-investigation-metas-terms-publishers-and-advertisers-6506906)
- [Reuters via Investing.com: Meta pauses planned terms updates, keeps existing rules in place (November 6, 2026)](https://www.investing.com/news/stock-market-news/meta-pauses-planned-terms-updates-keeps-existing-rules-in-place-5007156)
- [Ars Technica: "Does Meta think we can't read?" Meta abandons sketchy commercial terms update (November 6, 2026)](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/11/does-meta-think-we-cant-read-meta-abandons-sketchy-commercial-terms-update/)
- [TechCrunch: New York Times and other outlets sue web browser Brave over alleged content scraping (November 2, 2026)](https://techcrunch.com/2026/11/02/new-york-times-and-other-outlets-sue-web-browser-brave-over-alleged-content-scraping/)