Meta Grants Itself Right to Scrape Advertisers' Websites to Train AI
Starting October 30, 2026, Meta's new commercial terms allow indexing, re-scraping, and using content from websites linked to business accounts to train its products.
Meta has modified the wording of Section 1 of its Commercial Terms, which had been in effect since March 2024, with text allowing it to access, index, cache, copy, re-scrape websites linked to business products, and use their content to train the company's products.
The new terms take effect on October 30, 2026, according to a report by PPC Land. Acceptance is implied by continuing to use the service, and the text does not provide a partial opt-out option.
Meta spokesperson Andy Stone stated that the clause is narrower in scope than critics suggest and does not involve scraping news website content, according to the same source.
The new text links the scraped websites to their associated business accounts, meaning the terms extend to sites that are not necessarily owned by Meta, but are linked to products that owners advertise across its platforms.
What Do These Terms Mean?
Automated Scraping (Crawling): A process in which automated software visits website pages and reads their content to build an index or analyze data.
Indexing: Saving an organized copy of page content inside a search engine or platform database to facilitate later retrieval.
Commercial Terms: The contract governing the relationship between the platform and the businesses or advertisers using its services.
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