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If your company uses WhatsApp Business, a Facebook Page, an Instagram business account or runs ads through Meta, you have 7 days. On October 30, 2026, Meta's updated Commercial Terms take effect, and in them your company authorises Meta to use automated software such as crawlers and bots to access, index and collect the content of your website to develop its advertising and business products. There is no reject button: continuing to use these services for business after that date counts as acceptance. The practical step this week: list your company's Meta accounts, review what is publicly posted on your website, and decide what to block in robots.txt.
What exactly is changing?
The current version of Meta's Commercial Terms has been in effect since March 6, 2024, and it now carries a notice that the update takes effect on October 30, 2026. The new version has 9 sections, and three additions matter most:
- Automated access to your website: Section 1 says you authorise Meta, or anyone acting on its behalf, to use automated software such as web scrapers, bots, spiders and crawlers, and to create test credentials, to access, index, cache, analyse and collect the domains and pages associated with your products and services.
- AI mistakes are on you: Section 5 acknowledges that AI features may make mistakes and states that you are solely responsible for, and assume all risks of, those features and any content they produce.
- Acceptance by continued use: Section 7 states that continuing any business use after a notice of update means you agree to be bound by the new terms.
Does it apply to your company?
Almost certainly. The terms define business use broadly: running ads or marketing messages, selling or listing products, creating a product catalogue, managing a Page, and using any business product such as Ads Manager or Meta Business Suite. A store that answers customers on WhatsApp Business and a restaurant that manages an Instagram page are both inside that definition. According to The Register, about 1 million businesses use Meta's AI agents in WhatsApp and Messenger alone. Personal accounts used only for personal purposes are out of scope.
If you are reviewing your WhatsApp Business subscriptions this month, also read our article on WhatsApp Business monthly verification plans, because the new terms apply to the account whatever plan you choose.
Will Meta train its AI on your website content?
The current English text of the preview page says the purpose is to provide, develop, improve, research and maintain Meta's advertising and business products, and it does not name training explicitly. But National Law Review's analysis reports that Meta removed the word train from the U.S. English version after a backlash, that other language editions still carried it as of October 18 and 19, and that develop is broad enough to cover training. Clearer still is Meta's official page on its web crawlers: the Meta-ExternalAgent crawler exists for training foundation AI models or improving products by indexing content. In short, the possibility is real, and the decision is yours through robots.txt.
What to do before October 30
- List your accounts: every Facebook Page, Instagram business account, WhatsApp Business number, ad account and product catalogue, and who manages them, staff or marketing agencies.
- Map the associated websites: your main site, your store and any subdomain linked from your accounts or ads.
- Take anything sensitive off public pages: price quotes, internal PDFs and open share links belong behind a real login, not an unlisted link.
- Decide your robots.txt policy: if you do not want your website content used to train Meta's models, add these two lines:
User-agent: meta-externalagent
Disallow: /Do not block facebookexternalhit: it fetches the image and title when a customer shares your product link on WhatsApp. Remember that Meta says changes can take up to 24 hours to apply, and that FacebookExternalHit and Meta-ExternalFetcher may bypass the file in specific cases, so robots.txt is a signal, not a lock.
- Review AI replies: if you switched on automated replies in WhatsApp or Messenger, test their answers on prices, refunds and warranty before they reach a customer, because their mistakes are now your responsibility.
- Keep a dated copy: save the current and new terms in company records, and add a clause to marketing agency contracts setting out their responsibility for what they publish in your name.
The Origami view
Meta is not something most Saudi companies can walk away from; WhatsApp is the first customer service channel for many of them. So we do not see leaving as the answer. Treat your website as an asset you own and control: what is public should be public on purpose, what is private should be genuinely protected, and the crawler decision should be written into robots.txt deliberately, not by accident.
The AI responsibility clause matters more than it looks. An automated reply that promises a customer a discount that does not exist is now your company's mistake alone. If you want your website, your robots.txt and your WhatsApp Business integration reviewed so you keep control of your data, contact us.
The bottom line
The date is October 30, 2026, and acceptance happens automatically when you keep using the services. Book one hour this week with your tech team: list the accounts, clean up public pages, update robots.txt and review the AI replies. These steps cost almost nothing and save you a surprise later.
Sources
- Meta: updated Commercial Terms, effective October 30, 2026
- Meta: current Commercial Terms, effective March 6, 2024
- Meta for Developers: Meta web crawlers and robots.txt
- The Register: Meta grants itself right to scrape content from business customers
- National Law Review: analysis of Meta's new Commercial Terms
Frequently asked questions
Can I reject Meta's new terms and keep using WhatsApp Business?
No. The terms state that continuing to use Meta products for business after October 30, 2026 means you accept them. What you can control is what crawlers reach on your website, through robots.txt, and protecting sensitive pages behind a login.
Will blocking Meta's crawler in robots.txt stop my link previews on WhatsApp?
Not if you block only meta-externalagent, which is the training crawler. Link previews are fetched by a different crawler, facebookexternalhit, so leave it allowed if you want your product image and title to show when shared.
Do the terms apply to my personal Instagram account?
No. The Commercial Terms cover business use such as ads, Pages, catalogues, WhatsApp Business and Ads Manager. A personal account used only for personal purposes is governed by the regular terms of use.
Who is liable if an AI auto-reply gives a customer wrong information?
Under Section 5 of the new terms, your company alone assumes the risks of AI features and the content they produce. Test replies about prices, refunds and warranty before switching them on, and review them regularly.
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