Publishers file a complaint against Meta with UOKiK and seek to suspend its new terms

The dispute concerns Meta's right to automatically copy content from the websites of companies that have business accounts on Facebook and Instagram. In Norway, a court has already temporarily blocked these rules.

The Polish Chamber of Press Publishers (PIW) and Bonnier Business Polska, the publisher of "Puls Biznesu," filed a notification with UOKiK (the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection). They accuse Meta of abusing its dominant position. They want the office to urgently apply interim measures and prohibit the disputed part of the new commercial terms from being applied to publishers in Poland. Meta moved the effective date of these terms from October 30 to November 20. The information was reported by Wirtualne Media (opens in a new tab) and Press.pl (opens in a new tab).

The allegation concerns the so-called crawling clause. It allows Meta to automatically search, copy, store, and analyze the contents of business users' websites using bots and scrapers, that is, programs that retrieve data from websites. The terms also provide for the creation of test login credentials. According to the publishers, this opens the way to bypass paid barriers, namely paywalls. The clause cannot be rejected without losing access to Meta's key tools, including advertising tools.

PIW argues that the new rules may weaken copyright protection. This concerns publishers' neighboring rights and the ability to reserve that content may not be used to train AI systems. The notification states that content integrated into Meta's artificial intelligence systems "will in practice be impossible to trace and remove." The publishers also want UOKiK to cooperate on this matter with the European Commission. Meta rejects the allegations. It says consultations with the industry may last longer than until November 20, and until then the current terms remain in force.

The case already has a precedent in Norway. On October 28, the district court in Oslo temporarily prohibited Meta from changing the terms for business accounts until the dispute is resolved. The motion was filed on behalf of ten media companies, including NRK and Schibsted, by the publishers' association MBL. The ruling was issued without hearing Meta and is not final. UOKiK has not yet made a decision.

The outcome of the proceedings may determine whether companies that build traffic and sales on Facebook and Instagram will have to make the contents of their websites available to Meta as a condition for using these platforms.