Meta faces pressure as publishers and advertisers urge EU, UK to suspend new terms
Publishers globally are intensifying their efforts with AI companies that use their content without permission
On Thursday, digital advertisers and publishers advocated for EU and UK regulators to suspend Meta Platforms’ new commercial terms set to take effect on October 30, claiming that these would give Meta an absolute right to use their content for its AI services.
According to advocacy group the Movement for an Open Web, it had complained to the European Commission and the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority, and provisional measures were requested.
Publishers globally are intensifying their fight with their own AI companies that use their content without permission to train large language models, illuminating the collision between intellectual property owners and fair use defenders.
A co-founder of the Movement for an Open Web, Tim Cowen said: “ The terms would give Meta a free hand to scrape content from nearly every website in the world, potentially using that data to power AI-powered services that would then compete with those businesses.”
“Meta's new terms are clearly anti-competitive. Many businesses effectively have no choice but to use Meta's services and these conditions would force them to sign away the rights to their digital content with no means of opting out.”
Meta clarified it disagreed with the complaint, stating, “The crawling terms we consolidated only applied to our ads and business products, and we've clarified that in the terms themselves. It does not change how Meta uses web crawlers.”
The European Commission has not yet responded to email requests but companies requesting protective orders have to show that they will suffer incalculable and lasting harm from the alleged anti-competitive practices.
