Meta drops AI training line from new business terms after backlash

Meta’s updated Commercial Terms, which take effect October 30, let Meta crawl websites linked to business accounts on Facebook and Instagram.

October 17, 2026 · Work

Meta’s updated Commercial Terms, which take effect October 30, let Meta crawl websites linked to business accounts on Facebook and Instagram. The first version also said Meta could use that content to train its products. After the News/Media Alliance called the terms “outrageous and probably illegal”, the version on Meta’s legal site by October 17 no longer mentions training and limits crawling to advertising, business products and security. Meta says nothing has changed in how its crawlers work and that site owners can set preferences with robots.txt.

Why it matters to you: Millions of small businesses run Facebook or Instagram pages. The terms you accept decide what an AI company may do with your website, and public pushback can still change them.

Try this: Small business owner? Check what your website tells AI crawlers.

Explain in plain English what a robots.txt file is, how I can read mine at [mywebsite.ca]/robots.txt, and how to allow or block specific AI crawlers such as Meta’s, OpenAI’s and Google’s. List the trade-offs for a small business.

Source: Unite.AI, News/Media Alliance

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