On October 28, Meta said the new business terms, namely the updated Commercial Terms and Self-Serve Ad Terms, could take effect after November 20. The same day, the Oslo District Court barred the company from introducing the disputed provisions until a final ruling on their legality.
Meta named November 20 on October 23, when it moved the launch from October 30. Now the company acknowledges that consultations with industry associations may drag on. Until they are complete, the existing terms remain in force.
The dispute centers on a clause that would let Meta automatically bypass sites, index pages and collect content related to goods or services of users of its business tools. Meta also classifies running a business page on Facebook as commercial use of its services. The provision could reach a site that attracts audiences through Facebook and does not buy ads, such as an online casino review site.
On October 16, Meta changed the wording: it removed the direct mention of training its products on collected materials and limited use to advertising and business products. The right to automatic content collection remained. Lawyers interviewed for this story said the risks for site owners were not removed. Meta disagrees with that reading, saying its methods of bypassing sites have not changed and that restrictions can still be set in robots.txt.
Ten Norwegian media companies filed the lawsuit in Oslo, including NRK, TV 2, Schibsted and Amedia. The Norwegian Media Businesses' Association warned that the revised terms would allow collection of material behind paid subscriptions. On October 23, the Movement for an Open Web filed complaints with the European Commission and the UK Competition and Markets Authority.
The October 28 statement does not address rules for gambling ads, targeting or access to Ads Manager. It concerns the rights to website content. Meta has not withdrawn the disputed provisions and has not given a new date for the terms to take effect.
