Meta has indefinitely delayed its proposed commercial terms of service, which would have permitted the company to scrape the websites of Meta Business account users.
On Thursday, the company took down the preview link to the proposed terms and published an update to its Business Help Center that reads: “We recently shared that we were updating the Meta Commercial Terms, Product Catalog Terms, Self-Serve Ad Terms, and Ad Creative Generative AI Terms. These updates are now paused and will not take effect on November 20, 2026. We are continuing to consult with stakeholders and will provide a further update when we have more to share. In the meantime, our existing terms remain in effect.”
Meta confirmed the indefinite delay in a statement to Nieman Lab. “We’re pausing the changes as we continue to engage with stakeholders and take our time to get this right,” said a spokesperson for the company.Meta — which owns Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Threads — has repeatedly pushed back the terms’ effective date since Nieman Lab first reported on them on October 15. The terms were first set to take effect on October 30, sparking global outcry among news publishers, politicians, and trade organizations. On October 16, Meta removed the word “train” from its terms and limited the use of future scraped content to “advertising and business products.” On October 23, Meta moved the effective date back by three weeks to November 20.
Last week, Meta pledged to consult news publishers and industry leaders ahead of putting new commercial terms into effect.
“We’ve heard publishers’ feedback on our proposed ads and business terms update. We care deeply about our partners and do not plan to make policy changes without a full consultation with industry groups and leaders,” vice president of communications Andy Stone tweeted on October 28. “We’re committed to getting this right, and as we expect this consultation could extend beyond November 20, in which case we’d delay implementation of the updated terms.”
Since then, courts in Norway and Brazil have issued preliminary injunctions to block the terms from taking effect as a result of lawsuits filed by media organizations in both countries. The United Kingdom’s Competition and Markets Authority has opened a formal investigation into Meta, examining whether the company was “abusing a dominant position by imposing exploitative terms on publishers and advertisers.”
In the United States, the proposed terms stoked bipartisan concern. At the end of October, Sens. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) sent letters to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg asking him to withdraw the terms.
