Meta May Shelve Business Terms Update as UK Regulators Open Probe

Meta's rewrite of its commercial terms for businesses is on ice, and it might stay there. After regulators started asking pointed questions, the company said last week it could push the rollout back indefinitely, according to Reuters. The update had already slipped once, from an Oct. 20 effective date to Nov. 20.

The trouble started earlier this month, when Meta began telling business users their commercial terms of service were getting a fresh coat of paint. Buried in the new language was a change that legal experts flagged as alarming: wording that could have opened the door for Meta to scrape the websites of any business with a Facebook or Instagram presence.

Meta insists scraping was never the point. The company says the update exists to support data gathering for ad targeting, nothing more. But the AI era has given the word 'scraping' a sharper edge, and the distinction did little to quiet the room once regulators picked up the scent.

The UK's Competition and Markets Authority has opened an investigation into Meta's commercial terms for businesses, per The Next Web. The European Publishers Council is also weighing its next move, with concerns mounting over how business data gets collected to feed AI models.

Meta is now working to soothe those concerns ahead of the planned update. A copy of the revised commercial terms is available for review, and as of now the note at the top still says they take effect Nov. 20 — even as the company signals that date may never arrive.

Whether the original language was an innocent misfire or something broader, Meta is the one doing the explaining. For now, businesses with a Facebook or Instagram footprint get a reprieve, and regulators get a closer look.