Meta weighs further delay to business terms amid publisher opposition
The proposed rules would permit website scraping. Norwegian publishers have sued, and Senator Adam Schiff has called for the changes to be withdrawn.
Meta may again postpone business terms that would authorize it to scrape websites operated by companies using Facebook. Spokesperson Andy Stone said on October 28 that implementation could be delayed if consultations with publishers and industry leaders run past November 20.
The company had already moved the start date from October 30 to November 20 following objections. Its website still displays the November date. Stone said existing rules would continue to apply until the revised terms take effect.
The provisions would allow automated access to business websites for developing, researching and maintaining Meta’s advertising and business products. A group of Norwegian publishers has brought a lawsuit challenging the changes.
California Senator Adam Schiff has also urged Meta to abandon the update. In a letter to Mark Zuckerberg, he argued that the provisions could let the company circumvent paywalls and registration requirements, while leaving businesses unable to reject scraping without giving up their accounts.
Stone has said scraping news websites is not the purpose of the update and that Meta would follow content owners’ robots.txt preferences. Legal experts and publishing groups have noted that those preferences carry no legal force. Schiff said the proposed contract contains no explicit commitment to honor them.
Meta has not substantially revised the wording since an earlier October edit that deleted “train” and introduced a reference to its advertising and business products. The company did not immediately answer questions about whether additional amendments were planned.
