Publishers, advertisers call EU, UK antitrust regulators to suspend Meta's new commercial terms
"Meta's new terms are clearly anti-competitive. Many businesses effectively have no choice but to use Meta's services and these conditions would force them to sign away the rights to their digital content with no means of opting out," Tim Cowen, co-founder of the Movement for an Open Web, said.
CNA Games Guess Word Crack the word, one row at a time Buzzword Create words using the given letters Mini Sudoku Tiny puzzle, mighty brain teaser Mini Crossword Small grid, big challenge Word Search Spot as many words as you can Show More Show Less "The terms would give Meta a free hand to scrape content from nearly every website in the world, potentially using that data to power AI-powered services that would then compete with those businesses," he said. Meta said it disagreed with the complaint. "The crawling terms we consolidated only applied to our ads and business products, and we've clarified that in the terms themselves. It does not change how Meta uses web crawlers," a Meta spokesperson said. "As always, content owners can use robots.txt to signal their preferences. This is not about scraping news sites, and these updates don't give us new rights that supersede those preferences." The CMA said it met with Meta on Wednesday to get more details on its new business terms. "This is an important issue and we recognise the concerns that have been raised by businesses in the UK. We are engaged in urgent discussions with Meta as we consider our next steps," a CMA spokesperson said. The European Commission did not immediately respond to emailed requests for comment. Companies requesting interim measures have to show that they will suffer serious and irreparable damage from the alleged anti-competitive practices. The criticism by the Movement for an Open Web followed similar complaints aired by the European Publishers Council (EPC) last week and Germany's Digital Publishers and Newspaper Publishers Association (BDZV) and the Association of the Free Press (MVFP) earlier this week.
"The terms would give Meta a free hand to scrape content from nearly every website in the world, potentially using that data to power AI-powered services that would then compete with those businesses," he said.
"The crawling terms we consolidated only applied to our ads and business products, and we've clarified that in the terms themselves. It does not change how Meta uses web crawlers," a Meta spokesperson said.
"As always, content owners can use robots.txt to signal their preferences. This is not about scraping news sites, and these updates don't give us new rights that supersede those preferences."
The CMA said it met with Meta on Wednesday to get more details on its new business terms.
"This is an important issue and we recognise the concerns that have been raised by businesses in the UK. We are engaged in urgent discussions with Meta as we consider our next steps," a CMA spokesperson said.
The European Commission did not immediately respond to emailed requests for comment. Companies requesting interim measures have to show that they will suffer serious and irreparable damage from the alleged anti-competitive practices.
The criticism by the Movement for an Open Web followed similar complaints aired by the European Publishers Council (EPC) last week and Germany's Digital Publishers and Newspaper Publishers Association (BDZV) and the Association of the Free Press (MVFP) earlier this week.
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