Meta may use sweeping new commercial TOS to avoid millions in AI licensing fees

Meta is preparing a terms-of-service update that could give it much broader access to business accounts than before. According to legal experts cited by Ars Technica, the new language would let Meta train AI not only on a business’s social posts, but also on content from websites linked to those accounts.

The change is set to take effect on October 30. And it doesn’t sound especially negotiable: businesses won’t be able to opt out. The message, as described in the reporting, is simple enough — if a company doesn’t want Meta crawling its linked content for AI training, it may have to stop using Meta’s services.

That matters most for news publishers. Their articles are exactly the kind of content that can carry real licensing value, and this update could let Meta keep accessing that material without paying the kind of fees publishers might otherwise seek. Nieman Lab reported Thursday that the shift could have a major impact on those businesses in particular.

The timing is awkward too. News organizations are already locked in a dispute with OpenAI over whether AI training on their work without a license counts as fair use. Meta’s new terms seem designed to cover its bases no matter how that court battle ends, which is a very Meta way to avoid being told “please pay for the thing you already want.”