Meta updates data scraping policy following criticism – The Mercury News

Meta announced Friday evening that it had made “clarifications” regarding its new updated terms of service for its business and commercial products, which some legal and media experts had previously decried as being too unfair to content creators. The initial proposed changes, which Bay Area News Group reported earlier Friday, had granted Meta sweeping new authority to scrape business users’ websites for content to power its artificial intelligence products without a contract or compensation, according to some legal and media experts. The new version appears to remove some of the more explicit language, but many questions remain. Daniel Roberts, a Meta spokesperson, sent an email to Bay Area News Group just after 5 p.m. Friday, in which he included a statement from an unnamed spokesperson. “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 statement reads. This second version, which like its predecessor, is set to take effect on Oct. 30, affects any and all entities with free business accounts – which are encouraged by Meta for “businesses, brands, and celebrities.” Such accounts are in common use across many industries
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