Meta faced continued criticism from publishers and lawmakers over proposed updates to its advertising and terms of service, which critics said could allow the company to use collected content to develop business products, including artificial-intelligence systems. The company withdrew the proposed changes for the time being and said it would consult with publishers, but concerns remained about whether its policies adequately respected robots.txt instructions.
Publishers question Meta’s wording
“Does Meta think we can’t read?” Bamber wrote. He argued that removing the word “train” from the terms of use would do little to reassure publishers because the word “development” posed a similar threat.
“We’re saying all the content we collect can be used to develop ‘any business product’. So come on,” he wrote.
The Nieman Institute noted that the concerns had bipartisan support in the United States. Sens. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) sent a letter to Mark Zuckerberg asking him to rescind the terms.
Meta delays the proposed changes
On October 28, Andy Stone, Meta’s vice president of communications, said on X that the company would delay the changes, at least for the time being.
“We are listening to feedback from publishers on our proposed advertising and terms of service updates,” Stone said. “We care deeply about our partners and will not make policy changes without full consultation with industry bodies and leaders. We are committed to getting this right, but as expected this consultation could be extended beyond November 20th, which would delay implementation of the updated terms.”
Meta said its Terms of Service would never be used to circumvent robots.txt. In an update to business page owners, the company offered a “reminder” that “our crawling practices remain unchanged and content owners can continue to communicate their crawling preferences using robots.txt.”
Questions remain over robots.txt
The company nevertheless continued to face criticism after withdrawing the terms and promising to consult with publishers. Amid increased regulatory and court scrutiny, the Nieman Institute reported that Meta had taken steps to address publishers’ concerns, but noted that “the revised terms of service do not include specific language regarding respecting robots.txt settings.”
Source: arstechnica.com
