“Does Meta think we can’t read?” » Bamber wrote. He argued that removing the word “train” from the terms of service did little to reassure publishers, since “develop” posed the same threat.
“He says he can use any content he scrapes to develop ‘any commercial product.’ I mean, come on,” he wrote.
Nieman Lab noted that there is bipartisan concern in the United States. Senators Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Marsha Blackburn (R-Tennessee) sent letters asking Mark Zuckerberg to remove the conditions.
On October 28, Meta VP of Communications Andy Stone posted on X that Meta would do just that, at least for now.
“We have heard feedback from publishers on our proposed listings and updated business terms,” Stone said. “We care deeply about our partners and do not plan to make any policy changes without extensive consultation with industry groups and leaders. We are committed to getting this right and, as we hope, this consultation may extend beyond November 20, in which case we would delay implementation of the updated terms.”
Meta insisted that it would never use its terms of service to circumvent the robots.txt file. In an update to business page owners, the company offered a “reminder” that “our crawling practices remain unchanged and content owners can continue to report their crawling preferences using robots.txt.”
But the company still faced criticism after promising to remove the conditions and consult with publishers to come up with a good policy.
As regulatory and judicial scrutiny intensified, Nieman Lab noted that Meta took steps to try to allay publishers’ concerns, but “did not include any specific language about respecting robots.txt preferences in its revised Terms of Service.”
Gn bussni
