It deleted the word "train" after the backlash. Lawyers say "develop" is broad enough to drive a truck through

Meta's updated terms, first reported by Nieman Lab on October 15, authorized the company to crawl 'the domains, web pages, or URLs (and any content available through them)' tied to a business account and use the content to 'train' Meta's products. After publisher backlash, Meta published a revision dropping the word 'train' and limiting permitted uses to 'advertising and business products.'

The lawyers Nieman Lab consulted were unmoved: 'develop' is 'broad enough to drive a truck through,' said Cornell's James Grimmelmann, and robots.txt compliance is voluntary — 'unless it's a legally enforceable preference, it can still be ignored all the same.' The terms take effect October 30 with no opt-out; the only refusal is to stop using Meta's business products.