Meta Pauses Nov 20 Scraping Terms After Norway, Brazil Rulings
TL;DR
- Meta stripped 'train' from permitted uses after initial backlash but kept scraping rights intact under 'advertising and business products,' a cosmetic revision without substantive retreat.
- Brazil's injunction imposes daily fines of R$1 million (~$183K USD) capped at R$100 million, enforceable against Meta's accounts for three national publisher associations: ANJ, Abert, and Aner.
- The indefinite pause arrived 21 days after Nieman Lab first reported the terms, with both injunctions blocking the November 20 click-through consent deadline before it could take effect.
Meta has indefinitely paused the commercial terms update it was set to impose on November 20, pulling down the preview link and posting that "These updates are now paused and will not take effect on November 20, 2026," Nieman Lab reported. The change would have let the company scrape websites belonging to Meta Business account users.
The retreat followed pressure from three jurisdictions at once. Courts in Norway issued a preliminary injunction blocking the terms. A Brazilian court prohibited Meta from using journalistic content without authorization. The UK's Competition and Markets Authority opened a formal investigation into whether Meta was "abusing a dominant position by imposing exploitative terms on publishers and advertisers."
In Washington, Senators Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) sent letters to CEO Mark Zuckerberg asking him to withdraw the terms, joining UK politicians and German publishers already in protest.
Meta VP Andy Stone had tried to defuse the fight a week earlier. "We care deeply about our partners and do not plan to make policy changes without a full consultation with industry groups and leaders," he wrote on October 28. By November 5 the company gave up on the deadline entirely: "We're pausing the changes as we continue to engage with stakeholders and take our time to get this right," the posted statement reads.
The proposal had been shrinking since reporters first surfaced it on October 15. The next day Meta stripped the word "train" from the policy and narrowed scraped content use to "advertising and business products." On October 23 it pushed the effective date out to November 20 to buy time. The climbdown arrives alongside a broader run of regulation friction for the big model builders, and marks the 30th copyright story our tracker has logged in 90 days.
What others are reporting
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404 Media Read →
Tracks Meta's removal of 'train' from permitted uses as cosmetic framing; scraping rights survived under 'advertising and business products.' Also names UK CMA probe as a third enforcement pressure.
We are continuing to consult with stakeholders and will provide a further update when we have more to share.
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MediaPost Read →
Trade outlet confirms the mechanical step: Meta removed the terms link from its Business Help Centre on Nov 5; existing terms stay operative during the pause.
We are continuing to consult with stakeholders and will provide a further update when we have more to share.
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The Rio Times Read →
Brazil-side legal specifics: daily fine of R$1M (~$183K USD) capped at R$100M, with Judge Dezem's order covering publishers in ANJ, Abert, and Aner.
The order bars Meta from collecting and using member outlets' content without authorization, including to develop and train AI systems.
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FourWeekMBA Read →
Sets the 21-day timeline from first Nieman Lab report to indefinite pause; frames courts blocking the click-through mechanism as the key tactical shift.
We're pausing the changes as we continue to engage with stakeholders and take our time to get this right.
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NEW: After global outcry from publishers and politicians, Meta has pulled down its proposed commercial terms that would have allowed the company to scrape websites. The move comes three weeks after @hanaatameez.bsky.soc…
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Originally reported by niemanlab.org
Read the original article →Original headline: Meta Indefinitely Pauses New Commercial Terms After Publisher Outcry and Norway, Brazil Injunctions