Meta weighs delaying 'alarming' new business terms as backlash grows

As Meta faces an escalating backlash over its new terms for businesses, the company says it might push back their implementation as it plans "a full consultation" with publishers. But the company still hasn't changed the language of the terms, which gives the company the authority to scrape the websites of businesses that use Facebook.

The controversial new terms were originally supposed to go into effect October 30, but Meta later delayed it to November 20 after an outcry. Now, Meta spokesperson Andy Stone says that the actual implementation could be pushed back yet again, though Meta still lists November 20 on its website. "We care deeply about our partners and do not plan to make policy changes without a full consultation with industry groups and leaders," Stone said in a post on X. "We're committed to getting this right, and as we expect this consultation could extend beyond November 20, in which case we'd delay implementation of the updated terms. Until then our existing terms remain in place."

We've heard publishers' feedback on our proposed ads and business terms update. We care deeply about our partners and do not plan to make policy changes without a full consultation with industry groups and leaders.

We're committed to getting this right, and as we expect this... https://t.co/t91Q1QU8mu

— Andy Stone (@andymstone) October 28, 2026

Stone's statement comes as Meta has faced an intensifying backlash against the update, which gives it the right to scrape the websites of companies that use Facebook. The new terms state that Meta has the authority to "use automated software (such as web scrapers, bots, robots, spiders, crawlers, and user agents)" to access businesses websites "in order to provide, develop, improve, research, and maintain advertising and business products."

Publishers have raised significant concerns, with one industry group describing the change as "outrageous and probably illegal." A group of Norway-based outlets have also filed a lawsuit against the company over the new terms. This week, California Senator Adam Schiff became the second lawmaker to call on Meta to walk back the changes.

"The breadth of these updated provisions is extraordinary," he wrote in a letter addressed to Mark Zuckerberg. "Meta asserts an alarming opening to bypass technical measures essential to the economic security of news organizations and subscription-based creators, including paywalls, registration gates, and digital subscriber barriers. Meta's updated terms provide no mechanism for businesses to opt out of scraping while maintaining their account presence."

But while Meta is acknowledging the backlash, the company hasn't made any substantive changes to its terms since it removed the word "train" and added a reference to "advertising and business products" earlier this month. Stone has said that the new terms are "not about scraping news sites" and that the company will respect content owners' robots.txt preferences.

But, as legal experts and publishing groups have pointed out, robots.txt preferences are not legally binding. And AI companies regularly ignore these instructions. Meta also makes no reference to robots.txt in its terms, as Schiff points out in his letter. "Without the insertion of specific language codifying Meta's policy to respect robots.txt signals into the latest contractual terms, users lack any reliable means by which to protect their content," the senator wrote.

Meta didn't immediately respond to questions about whether it was planning further changes to its terms.