Meta paused new ad and business terms scheduled to go into effect on Nov. 20. That leaves advertisers and other businesses using Meta’s services operating under existing terms. The pre-existing terms permit Meta to crawl content on advertiser websites for use such as “research and training,” whenever the advertiser places an ad order.
The Meta Business Help Center notice refers to the Commercial Terms, Product Catalog Terms, Self-Serve Ad Terms and Ad Creative Generative AI Terms. According to the notice, the updates “are now paused and will not take effect on November 20, 2026.”
On Nov. 5, Nieman Lab reported that Meta had posted the notice regarding halting the updates, and according to a Meta spokesperson, “We’re pausing the changes as we continue to engage with stakeholders and take our time to get this right.”
What Stays In Effect
Meta says the four existing documents stay in effect until further notice. Each one’s page now opens with a line saying the updates are on hold. When I checked on Nov. 10, the U.S. and UK English previews of the updated Commercial Terms and Self-Serve Ad Terms showed a “page isn’t available” message.
The Commercial Terms currently in force, dated March 6, 2024, don’t include a crawling paragraph. The paused version would have added one covering sites associated with a business’s products or services. The Commercial Terms apply to any business use, including managing a Facebook Page.
The Self-Serve Ad Terms in force, dated Aug. 22, 2025, already include a crawling grant. By placing an ad order, an advertiser gives Meta the right to “access, index, cache, analyze or crawl” the content on its domains. The listed uses include developing advertising and other business-related products, “research and training,” and maintaining the integrity of Meta’s products.
The Ad Creative Generative AI Terms, dated May 6, 2024, also let Meta crawl URLs that advertisers provide, for use with their ads.
The AI Features Section Is On Hold Too
Adweek reported in October that the suspended Commercial Terms included a new section called AI Features. In this section, advertisers would be “solely responsible” for all of the results produced by Meta’s AI features as well as all changes those features make (including features that Meta enables automatically).
In its Ad Creative Generative AI Terms currently in effect, Meta has tied that responsibility to the advertiser’s own actions. The terms say that when an advertiser makes use of or posts AI-generated content, they are “solely responsible” for determining if the Output is correct, and if it is suitable for public display.
According to a Meta spokesperson who spoke to Adweek, advertisers can opt out of individual Advantage+ features at any time from within their Ads Manager account.
Why This Matters
Businesses using Meta will not be required to consider any new business or ad terms prior to Nov. 20. For advertisers, the crawling allowance under the current ad terms will continue to apply when an advertiser places a new order; likewise, the terms granting this crawling allowance do not mention robots.txt.
The announcement from Meta says the company has made no changes to its crawling methods. Furthermore, the same options are available to content owners to express their crawl preferences via robots.txt.
Meta’s crawler documentation identifies Meta-ExternalAds for ads and various other business products. Additionally, the documentation identifies Meta-ExternalAgent for uses such as training foundation AI models. The documentation specifically includes robots.txt rules naming both of these crawlers, so review how you currently handle rules for both within your robots.txt file. The same page says two of Meta’s other crawlers might skip robots.txt in certain situations.
Looking Ahead
Meta says it’s still talking to the parties involved and that it’ll give an update once it has more to share. As of Nov. 10, the announcement hadn’t set a timeline for updating terms, nor had it specified whether or how much of the revised terms would be changed.
Nieman Lab reports that courts in Brazil and Norway have entered preliminary injunctions against these terms based on complaints made by press organizations. According to the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), its investigation is still open. It is investigating both the current terms of business for Meta and proposed changes to those terms. The timelines listed are subject to revision; currently the first phase of fact-gathering is scheduled to run through January 2027.
Featured Image: Michael Vi/Shutterstock
