Meta’s 30 October terms: review website crawling

Shopify merchants using Meta for business should review its updated Commercial Terms before 30 October 2026. The official US English preview includes permission for automated access to websites associated with a business’s products or services, with stated purposes tied to advertising and business products and platform security.

This reaches beyond paid advertising. The preview’s introduction lists activities including managing a Page, maintaining a product catalogue and selling or listing products. A business should therefore check which Meta services it uses before assuming the change concerns only its ads team.

What the current preview says

Section 1 describes access using automated tools, including crawlers, and the creation of test credentials. It covers associated domains, pages and URLs, their available content and periodic updates. The specified purposes include developing and maintaining advertising and business products, delivering commercial content and connecting businesses with interested users.

We read the official preview on 21 October. Its crawling paragraph does not contain the word “train”. That observation is narrower than a conclusion that all AI-related use is prohibited, or that any particular use is legally authorised.

Search Engine Journal reported on 19 October that Meta had removed training from an earlier version of the clause while retaining crawling permission. Our verification concerns the currently published preview; we have not independently archived the earlier wording.

A practical review for ecommerce teams

Start by recording the Meta services your business uses, the domains connected to them and who owns the relevant decisions. Include your agency or other service providers in that review: the terms explicitly address people acting on a business’s behalf.

Then give the current preview to whoever reviews your commercial agreements. Ask them to assess the scope against your actual use, rather than relying on a social post or an earlier screenshot. Keep a dated copy and recheck the official page before the effective date, since preview text can change.

For technical teams, inventory existing crawler controls and their intended purpose before changing them. This article does not establish that a robots.txt rule overrides contractual terms, or recommend blocking all Meta traffic. Access settings and agreement review are separate tasks.

Keep the dates and decisions separate

The preview states that continued business use after notice of an update amounts to agreement to the updated terms. It also says users who disagree may stop business use. That makes a documented review before 30 October useful; it is not an instruction to accept the terms or interrupt campaigns automatically.

This is a commercial-terms review, not a newly verified advertising-account setting. Check the current official text for the version that applies to your business.