EBU: “Meta must revise commercial terms”
October 28, 2026



The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) has voiced its concern regarding Meta’s updated Commercial Terms.

“The new terms give Meta and its artificial intelligence (AI) agents broad permission to scrape content from websites linked to a Meta business account. The EBU and almost every public service media (PSM) organisation hold such accounts to manage their pages and channels on Meta services. As the terms stand, the only way to opt out is to leave Meta’s platforms altogether. For PSM, that is not a genuine choice, because these platforms are important, strategic gateways to their audiences,” said the EBU.


Last week’s revisions (for example, “limiting the stated purpose to advertising and business products”) do not solve the problem, stated the EBU. The terms could still allow Meta to use content for AI purposes, the breadth of access is unchanged, and Meta’s assurance that it respects robots.txt, the file a website uses to signal its crawling preferences, is a public statement rather than a binding term of the contract.

“This is a real concern for the EBU and its Members. On these websites, broadcasters publish their own content and also large volumes of third-party material that they cannot license to others, such as sports footage, music, agency photographs and news agency content. The new terms are incompatible with the right of reservation under the DSM Copyright Directive, because they take away rights-holders’ ability to decide how their content is used. As drafted, the terms also raise serious concerns under Article 102 TFEU and the Digital Markets Act (DMA), and have alarmed the wider media sector,” added the EBU.

The EBU welcomed the scrutiny now under way by the European Commission and the UK Competition and Markets Authority, as well as Meta’s decision to postpone.

The EBU calls on Meta to revise the terms before they take effect. Two changes matter most:

“We are ready to find a workable solution, but not one that forces public service media to hand over use of their content, and others’ content, simply to reach their audiences. We ask Meta to revise these terms and give a meaningful way to opt-out,” commented Richard Burnley, EBU Legal and Policy Director.