Meta’s updated Commercial Terms are scheduled to take effect on October 30, 2026. They authorize Meta, or an entity acting for it, to use automated tools to access and crawl certain websites associated with a business user’s products or services, with listed uses for collected content that include training. Meta’s Commercial Terms preview
The clause covers domains, webpages, and URLs associated with a user’s products or services, as well as sites made available through the user’s or other users’ use of Meta products and services. It names scrapers, bots, spiders, crawlers, and user agents, and permits operations including indexing, caching, analysis, collection, retrieval, and periodic updates. It also mentions creating test credentials.
The terms apply to business or commercial use of Meta products, including advertising, product listings, app development, business Pages or Groups, Meta Business Suite, Ads Manager, and measurement services. The clause sets out contractual permission; it does not describe a crawl of a particular website.
How the new terms differ from Meta’s earlier ad terms
Meta’s Ad Creative Generative AI Terms, effective May 6, 2024, already allowed automated crawling of URLs users supplied in connection with ads. That permission was framed around ad-related use or purposes set out in those terms. The updated Commercial Terms use a broader business-associated-site trigger and explicitly list training among the permitted uses.
| Contract detail | Earlier Ad Creative Generative AI Terms | Updated Commercial Terms |
| Crawling trigger | URLs supplied by a user in connection with ads | Domains, webpages, or URLs associated with products or services, or made available through use of Meta products and services |
| Stated uses | Use connected with ads or purposes set out in those terms | Providing, developing, improving, researching, training, and maintaining the integrity of covered products, services, and features |
| Business context | Meta’s Ad Creative Generative AI features and advertising | Commercial or business use, including ads, listings, apps, business Pages or Groups, business tools, and measurement services |
| Date | Effective May 6, 2024 | Scheduled to take effect October 30, 2026 |
The terms address different directions of data collection, too. Meta’s Automated Data Collection Terms govern automated collection of data from Meta products by outside parties; the updated Commercial Terms address Meta’s access to qualifying external websites.
Meta’s position and the dispute over robots.txt
In a report published October 15, 2026, Nieman Lab said Meta described the update as a consolidation of language from earlier terms and said it would not change the company’s crawling practices. Meta also said site owners can manage access with robots.txt. Nieman Lab’s report
The same report quoted three legal experts who said the new wording could be read to cover publishers’ websites. James Grimmelmann, a professor of digital and information law at Cornell Law School, discussed a possible reading that would include publisher content and training. Legal experts also questioned whether the terms could be interpreted to override blocking instructions. Whether the terms displace robots.txt remains unsettled.
