Review advertiser check items under Meta's October 30 Commercial Terms

The revision applies to everyone managing ad accounts, Facebook Pages, or Meta Business Suite. Without an opt-out button, advertisers need to evaluate how their domains and creative workflows connect to platform tools.

Which provisions change starting October 30?

The revised terms consolidate separate documents for advertising, product catalogs, and generative AI into unified commercial agreements while clarifying automated website data collection. Ad Creative Generative AI Terms merge into Self-Serve Ad Terms, and Product Catalog Terms integrate directly into Commercial Terms.

This consolidation reduces the need for separate agreements when turning on individual features. In return, maintaining a single business account subjects your brand to the consolidated commercial terms across Meta products.

The table compares Meta’s official legal terms (October 2026 revision), verified on 2026-10-18.

How far does the website crawling authorization extend?

The updated terms permit Meta and authorized contractors to use automated tools such as crawlers and scrapers to index and evaluate web pages associated with your products or services. While earlier drafts mentioned AI model training, the revised text frames this collection around providing, developing, improving, researching, and maintaining business products.

Authority to extract data from product pages and public landing pages remains intact. Although Meta explains this indexing as support for product catalogs and recommendations, businesses should ensure staging links or confidential test URLs are not linked in Business Manager.

Manage internal pages that should not be indexed using the following steps.

• Remove development and staging subdomains from the verified domain list in Business Manager.
• Specify Meta crawler access boundaries in robots.txt just as you would for search engine bots.
• Ensure private member pages and post-checkout screens do not expose unnecessary metadata tags.

How is legal responsibility assigned for generative AI assets?

Legal responsibility for copy and imagery generated by Advantage+ creative tools or generative AI rests entirely with the advertiser. Even if platform tools automatically modify headlines or expand image backgrounds, the business account owner remains liable for truth in advertising and trademark compliance.

As observed in Meta Advertising Week AI tools status, automated features are rolling out rapidly. The terms explicitly prohibit advertisers from removing AI disclosure watermarks or provenance metadata embedded by platform tools.

When enabling automated creative optimization, regularly audit generated copy against actual product specifications. Platform assistance does not provide legal indemnity for advertising claims.

What should you check first across ad accounts and websites?

Before October 30, audit domain verification lists in Meta Business Suite and examine automated creative settings across active campaigns. Because continuing to use Meta services binds the account to these terms, proactive adjustments are necessary.

Keep in mind what the terms do not define. Specific industry exemptions, crawl frequency caps, and bot request rate limits are not stated in the legal text.

Follow these three check steps before the effective date.

1. Review linked website domains under Business Settings > Brand Safety and Suitability > Domains.
2. Identify campaigns utilizing Advantage+ creative enhancements and automated text variations in Ads Manager.
3. Check your web server robots.txt configuration to ensure private directories remain disbarred from public indexing.

Sources checked: 2026-10-18