Regulators and Publishers Challenge Meta's New AI Scraping Terms
Meta Platforms faces regulatory scrutiny in the UK and EU and protests from Canadian publishers over new terms of service regarding AI data scraping.
Digital publishers and advertisers are challenging Meta Platforms over updated commercial terms of service that critics claim allow the company to scrape website content to train AI services. The Movement for an Open Web has lobbied the European Commission and the UK's Competition and Markets Authority to suspend the terms, scheduled for October 30, arguing they are anti-competitive and force businesses to sign away digital rights.
In Canada, News Media Canada and the Canadian Association of Broadcasters are seeking clarity on the same updates. Kevin Desjardins, president of the Canadian Association of Broadcasters, noted a contradiction in Meta blocking news content in Canada under the 2023 Online News Act while simultaneously seeking rights to exploit that content for commercial purposes. This tension arrives as Canadian outlets, including The Canadian Press, pursue lawsuits against AI firms OpenAI and Anthropic over copyrighted material.
Meta has denied the allegations, stating the consolidated crawling terms apply only to its ads and business products and do not grant new rights that supersede robots.txt preferences. The Competition and Markets Authority confirmed it met with Meta on October 21 to discuss the concerns and is currently considering its next steps.
