The United Kingdom’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has launched an investigation into Meta’s proposed new business terms that would allow the company to use publishers’ content to develop its own products, including artificial intelligence tools. The inquiry centers on concerns that these terms, which Meta has since paused, could disadvantage publishers and advertisers using its platforms such as Instagram.
Meta had planned to implement the updated terms on November 20 but delayed the rollout after receiving pushback from industry groups and formal complaints to both the CMA and the European Commission’s competition division. The regulator has not yet determined whether Meta has violated UK competition law.
The CMA’s primary issue with the proposed terms is that they could permit Meta to exploit content from publishers’ websites without providing them an option to consent or control how their material is used. This has raised broader concerns amid ongoing debates over how technology companies source content to train artificial intelligence systems.
In the United States, a consortium of publishers filed a class-action lawsuit in May accusing Meta of accessing millions of books and academic articles from pirated sources to train Llama, the company’s AI platform. European regulators have also scrutinized tech giants: the European Commission initiated a probe into Google’s use of online content for its AI services, such as AI Overviews, last December. This followed allegations that Google unfairly diverted traffic from news websites, prompting the CMA to require Google earlier this year to allow publishers to opt out of feeding their content into AI-powered search features.
A Meta spokesperson said the company disagrees with the need for an investigation and emphasized it had committed to consulting with publishers and other stakeholders before making any changes to its terms.
Several trade organizations have expressed support for the CMA’s inquiry. Theo Bamber, chief executive of the News Media Association, criticized Meta for forcing publishers into a difficult position of either relinquishing content for AI development without compensation or leaving platforms widely used by millions in the UK for news consumption. News UK, a member of this association and wholly owned by News Corp—which also owns Dow Jones & Co., publisher of The Wall Street Journal, and The Australian—has been vocal in opposing Meta’s practices.
Tim Cowen, co-founder of the Movement for an Open Web, an advocacy group representing publishers and advertisers, described the delay and the CMA’s investigation as a “significant win for the wider industry” but called for stronger regulatory action to address what he described as anti-competitive behavior by dominant tech companies.
While Meta paused the terms pending discussions with the industry, the regulator’s inquiry signals increasing scrutiny over how digital platforms leverage third-party content to expand artificial intelligence capabilities and the implications this has for competition and content creators. Meanwhile, News Corp maintains commercial agreements supplying content to other tech platforms such as Google.