Publishers and advertisers are asking European and U.K. competition regulators to suspend Meta’s updated commercial terms before they take effect Oct. 30.
The Movement for an Open Web filed complaints with the European Commission and U.K. Competition and Markets Authority. The group says the terms could give Meta broad rights to use businesses’ content for artificial intelligence services, Reuters reported.
The advocacy group includes digital advertisers and publishers. It wants both regulators to impose interim measures while they examine the terms.
Tim Cowen, the group’s co-founder, called the changes “clearly anti-competitive.” He said many businesses effectively have no choice but to use Meta’s services.
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Cowen said those companies could be forced “to sign away the rights to their digital content with no means of opting out.”
He also argued that the terms could let Meta scrape content across a wide range of websites. That information could then support AI products competing with the businesses providing the content, he said.
Meta disputes that interpretation.
A company spokesperson said the consolidated crawling terms apply only to Meta’s advertising and business products. Meta also said the update does not change how its web crawlers operate.
“This is not about scraping news sites,” the spokesperson told Reuters. Meta said the changes do not override website owners’ existing crawler preferences.
The company pointed to robots.txt as one way content owners can express those preferences. Reuters did not provide further technical detail about how those instructions interact with Meta’s commercial terms.
The U.K. Competition and Markets Authority met with Meta on Wednesday to discuss the changes.
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A CMA spokesperson said the regulator recognizes concerns raised by U.K. businesses. The agency is engaged in “urgent discussions with Meta as we consider our next steps.”
The European Commission has also received the complaint. It told Reuters that it would assess the filing under its normal procedures.
Interim measures require companies to show a risk of serious and irreparable harm. Reuters did not report that either regulator had made a decision on the request.
The latest complaint follows objections from other publisher groups.
The European Publishers Council raised concerns last week. German publishing groups BDZV and MVFP also objected earlier this week.
Media Copilot has previously covered the Oct. 30 deadline and the debate over Meta’s commercial terms. Those earlier reports provide additional context but are separate from Reuters’ account of the regulatory complaints.
For publishers, the immediate issue is the gap between the two interpretations.
Meta says the changes concern its advertising and business products and do not create new crawling rights. Movement for an Open Web argues the terms could allow much broader use of commercial content.
Regulators will now decide how to handle that dispute. The CMA is already in talks with Meta, while the European Commission is assessing the complaint.
With Oct. 30 approaching, the immediate question is whether either regulator grants the requested interim measures before the terms take effect.
