ZDNET’s key takeaways

Meta Business Suite’s new terms allow web-crawling on publication sites, legal experts say.

The change goes into effect on Oct. 30.

Meta says the updated terms are a “consolidation” of pre-existing conditions.

Meta’s new commercial terms allow its web scrapers, bots, and agents to crawl websites “associated with” Meta business accounts, including news publishers, according to a report by Nieman Lab .

The terms apply to accounts that use Meta Business Suite’s account dashboard. Companies manage their Instagram profiles, Facebook pages, Messenger, and WhatsApp channels through Meta Business Suite. ZDNET uses Meta Business Suite to analyze and schedule posts across social media platforms.

Also: Meta Muse is the worst AI agent for privacy – and I’ve tried them all

What’s changing

The changes go into effect on Oct. 30, and Meta will not provide an opt-out, meaning publishers will either agree to the web-scraping or be booted from the platform.…