EBU urges Meta to revise Commercial Terms and offer a genuine opt-out for public service media

What happened

On 27 October 2026, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) said it was deeply concerned about Meta's updated Commercial Terms, which it said give Meta and its artificial intelligence agents broad permission to scrape content from websites linked to a Meta business account. The EBU said almost every public service media organisation holds such an account to manage its pages and channels on Meta services, and that as the terms stand the only way to opt out is to leave Meta's platforms altogether, which it said is not a genuine choice for public service media because the platforms are important gateways to their audiences.

What the EBU says is still unresolved

The EBU said last week's revisions to the terms, including limiting the stated purpose to advertising and business products, do not solve the problem: the breadth of access is unchanged, the terms could still allow Meta to use content for AI purposes, and Meta's assurance that it respects robots.txt is a public statement rather than a binding term of the contract. It also said broadcasters publish large volumes of third-party material on their websites, such as sports footage, music, agency photographs and news agency content, which they cannot license to others. The EBU said the terms as drafted are incompatible with the right of reservation under the EU DSM Copyright Directive and raise serious concerns under Article 102 TFEU and the Digital Markets Act. These are the EBU's stated positions, not findings of a court or regulator.

What the EBU is asking for

The EBU welcomed scrutiny by the European Commission and the UK Competition and Markets Authority and Meta's decision to postpone the terms, but said postponing is not a solution. It called on Meta to revise the terms before they take effect, with two changes it described as mattering most: holding a Meta business account should not automatically give Meta permission to use public service media content, and any permission should cover only content the account holder owns; and account holders should be able to refuse that permission without leaving the platforms and without penalty to access, distribution or referral, with AI training and development excluded unless separately and expressly authorised and machine-readable reservations such as robots.txt honoured as binding terms. EBU Legal and Policy Director Richard Burnley said: "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."