Meta revises data scraping policy affecting Bay Area business accounts

Meta has updated its data scraping policy for its business and commercial products, following criticism from content creators and legal experts, Bay Area News Group reported. The initial terms had granted Meta broad rights to scrape content from business users’ websites without contracts or compensation, raising concerns about fairness to content creators.

The revised policy, which takes effect on October 30, narrows the scope of Meta’s automated data collection to content used for advertising and business products, as well as maintaining the integrity and security of Meta’s offerings. This change affects entities with free business accounts, which are widely used across industries including media in the Bay Area.

Meta spokesperson Daniel Roberts clarified that the crawling terms apply only to ads and business products, addressing concerns raised by users and experts. However, questions remain about how Meta will handle web protocols such as robots.txt to manage content scraping.

The update reflects ongoing tensions between technology companies and content creators over the use of online content for artificial intelligence development. Bay Area businesses and media outlets with Meta business accounts will be directly impacted by these changes as they take effect later this month.