Meta pauses new terms after 180 Norwegian outlets win court block

Business owners on Facebook and Instagram will keep their current terms for the time being. Meta announced on Oct. 29 that it is delaying the rollout of updated business account rules. The original start date of Oct. 30 has been suspended. This pause follows a legal victory in Norway and growing scrutiny from regulators in Europe.

The draft rules would have granted Meta broad rights to use automated software to index and crawl the websites of business accounts. The text specifically allowed the company to collect, retrieve, and analyze content from domains associated with its users. Critics argued this language gave the tech giant permission to scrape news sites without payment. They feared the data would be used to build competing AI services.

On Oct. 28, a Norwegian court issued a temporary injunction. The order was requested by 180 media companies. These outlets represent roughly 97% of the country's newspaper circulation. Lene Eltvik Vindfeld, chair of the Norwegian Media Businesses’ Association, said the court agreed that Meta holds a dominant position in the market. She noted that the new terms were found to be unreasonable by the judges.

Meta claims the update is designed to pull accurate product information for ad recommendations. Andy Stone, a company spokesman, stated on X that the change is not about scraping news sites. However, a report from the Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard University suggested otherwise. The Lab consulted three legal experts who reviewed the terms. They concluded the language could be used to argue that Meta can scrape content to train its AI products.

Following the report, Meta removed the word “train” from the updated terms. The U.K. Competition and Markets Authority opened its own investigation on Oct. 30. The regulator is concerned that requiring publishers to accept these conditions amounts to an unlawful imposition of unfair trading conditions. The European Commission also confirmed it discussed the terms with Meta and welcomed the delay.

In the United States, the Association of American Publishers called on Meta to drop the new terms. Maria A. Pallante, the group's president, said the rules implicitly acknowledge that permission is required to use creative works. She argued that the company is abusing its market power by compelling consent from commercial users. No lawsuits have yet been filed in the U.S. over the matter.

European critics remain skeptical of the postponement. Randi S. Øgrey, CEO of the Norwegian MBL, said the company's assurances are insufficient. She outlined three demands for the media sector. First, Meta must respect publishers' reservations against scraping. Second, any use of journalism in AI products should require a separate voluntary agreement and payment. Third, publishers who do not sign the new terms should not be marginalized on the platform. Tim Cowen of the Movement for an Open Web described the delay as a win but warned that regulators must act quickly to prevent future anti-competitive moves.