Meta delays new business terms after outcry over potential web scraping of news sites

Meta said it was postponing the rollout of new terms for its business accounts after an outcry from media companies and open-web advocates who said the updated rules would allow the tech giant to scrape vast amounts of data and potentially build competing services.The new rules, originally scheduled to go into effect Oct. 30, authorize Meta to use automated software such as web scrapers and bots to “index, cache, analyze, collect, retrieve, or crawl the domains, web pages, or URLs” associated with a business account.Critics say the update would have applied to all business clients, regardless of opposition, and without payment for the extracted content — and that Meta would have been able to use the content to potentially build products such as AI services that could compete with news publishers. Meta, however, said the update only applies to its ads and business products, and that how the company uses web crawlers is not changing.That said, regular users of Meta's platforms, including