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Meta has pushed back the start date for updated business terms from 30 October to 20 November, giving businesses more time to understand a clause that still allows it to crawl pages connected to their products and services. The delay buys time, not a change to the permission.

What happened The revised Commercial Terms and Self-Serve Ad Terms were due to take effect on 30 October. Search Engine Journal reports that Meta has moved the date to 20 November. A Meta spokesperson told Nieman Lab the extension is to explain what is changing, including how its web crawlers work. The crawling provision remains in both agreements. It allows Meta to use automated software and create test credentials to crawl relevant pages and periodically retrieve updates. Search Engine Journal says Meta’s information about its crawlers includes uses such as advertising, AI model training and Meta AI search. The article also notes that Meta’s current Self-Serve Ad Terms already permit crawling advertisers’ domains for uses including research and training once an ad order is placed. Why it matters

Discuss: Should Meta have to make robots.txt preferences binding in its business terms, or is clearer explanation enough?

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