Digital advertisers and publishers on Thursday, October 22, asked regulators in the European Union and the United Kingdom to suspend Meta's new commercial terms, which take effect on October 30. They argue the new terms give Meta unlimited rights to use their content for its artificial intelligence (AI) services.

A formal complaint was filed by the advocacy group Movement for an Open Web, which brings together digital advertisers and publishers. The group appealed to the European Commission and the UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), asking for interim measures before the new terms take effect.

The complaint was filed eight days before October 30 — the date the new terms take effect. The group is asking regulators to temporarily suspend the terms until a final decision is reached.

What the Complaint Says

The group's co-founder Tim Cowen called Meta's new terms openly anticompetitive:

"Meta's new terms are blatantly anticompetitive. Many businesses have no practical alternative to using Meta's services, and these terms force them to give up their digital content rights with no opt-out," said Tim Cowen, co-founder of Movement for an Open Web.

The complaint's core argument is that many businesses depend on Meta's services in their operations and have no practical way to walk away from them. In that situation, the new terms force them to hand their digital content rights to the company, with no opt-out mechanism provided.

This is not the only complaint. According to Reuters, the European Publishers Council raised a similar objection last week, and earlier this week Germany's Digital Publishers and Newspaper Publishers Association (BDZV) and the Association of the Free Press (MVFP) also spoke out against Meta's new terms.

Meta's Response

Meta said it disagrees with the claims in the complaint. According to a company spokesperson, the combined crawling terms apply only to Meta's advertising and business products, as clarified in the terms themselves. The spokesperson stressed that these terms do not change how Meta uses its web crawlers.

On Meta's reading, the disputed clauses concern not general web content but specifically work with business customers — the company says this boundary is clearly stated in the text of the terms.

The company also reminded content owners that they can use the robots.txt standard to protect their sites from crawling. The Meta spokesperson separately noted that this is not about scraping news sites.

What Regulators Are Doing

The UK's Competition and Markets Authority said it met with Meta on Wednesday and received further information about the new business terms. The CMA is now holding urgent discussions with the company and reviewing its next steps.

The European Commission did not immediately respond to requests for comment. With the complaint seeking interim measures in both jurisdictions, October 30 — when the new terms take effect — is approaching.

October 30: Why It's Urgent

The new commercial terms take effect on October 30 — the complaint was filed exactly eight days before that date. Movement for an Open Web is asking regulators to temporarily suspend the terms until a final decision is reached.

Interim measures are an emergency mechanism in competition law that suspends a disputed practice until the final investigation concludes. The group argues that once the terms take effect, businesses will already have given up their content rights, and a later ruling would come too late.

That is why the complaint was raised simultaneously in both jurisdictions — before the European Commission and the UK's CMA.

Background: Where the Dispute Began

The current dispute began with changes Meta made to its commercial terms on October 16. At the time, the company added clauses allowing content connected to its products to be used for AI services — a story also covered on our site.

After publishers' criticism, on October 18 Meta removed language from the terms that implied AI models could be freely trained on news sites (more details here). But The Verge reports that lawyers consider these changes insufficient: the remaining phrase "connected to your products or services" could still leave the door open to scraping.

Also, according to The Verge, Meta removed the language about freely training AI models on news sites from its business terms, but lawyers say the changes are not enough to address the concerns.

So the events of the past week unfolded in three stages: the terms were updated on October 16, Meta removed the criticized language on October 18, and on October 22 publishers and advertisers filed a formal complaint with regulators. Primary source: Reuters