Meta removes language that raised scraping and AI training concerns

Meta recently updated its commercial terms of use, declaring that the company can “use any content from [a business account’s] domains, web pages, or URLs to provide, develop, improve, research, train, and maintain the integrity of” Meta products and services.

According to legal experts interviewed by Nieman Lab, this looked like a “remarkable provision” that could give Meta permission to scrape the website of any publisher with a Meta business account and use the content to train the company’s AI models. (While Meta defeated a high-profile lawsuit over alleged copyright infringement last year, other cases against AI companies, <a href="https://warsaw.today/korean-air-new-york-ulaanbaatar-mongolia-971-roundtrip-including-all-taxes/” title=”Korean Air: New York – Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. $971. Roundtrip, including all Taxes”>including Meta, continue.)

However, a Meta spokesperson insisted that the updated terms did not reflect a change in the way Meta crawls the web. And now, The Verge reports that the provision has been removed.

“We’ve heard you and want to clarify: the crawling terms we consolidated only applied to our ads and business products, and we’ve clarified that in the terms themselves,” the company said in a statement. “It does not change how Meta uses web crawlers.”

Source: techcrunch.com