Meta paused its new business terms. Here is what they would have allowed

On November 5, 2026, Meta paused four new sets of business terms that were due to take effect on November 20. If you run a Facebook Page, buy ads or sell through a product catalog, the Meta business terms paused that day would have applied to you. For now nothing changes, but what the drafts said shows where Meta was heading, especially on AI.

Which terms were paused

Meta's Business Help Center names four: the Commercial Terms, the Product Catalog Terms, the Self-Serve Ad Terms and the Ad Creative Generative AI Terms. In Meta's words: "These updates are now paused and will not take effect on November 20, 2026 ... In the meantime, our existing terms remain in effect."

Meta has not said when, or whether, new versions will come back.

Who pays for AI mistakes

The draft terms for Meta's AI ad tools said plainly that the AI "may make mistakes", and that ads Meta's AI created or edited were the business's responsibility. So if Meta's tool wrote a wrong price or an untrue claim into your ad, you would carry the consequences, not Meta. Anyone using Meta for business, with Pages, ads or catalogs, would have been covered by this.

Your website, crawled

The part that worried businesses most was in the first draft. It let Meta collect content from websites linked to a business account and use it to "develop, improve, research, train" its products. In practice, connecting your shop's site to your Meta account could have let Meta use your pages to train its AI.

After pushback, Meta removed the word "train" on October 16. Then, on November 5, it paused all four sets of terms.

What to do now

Nothing changes today: your current terms stay in effect. If new terms are announced, read the parts on AI-generated ads and on data from linked websites before you accept them. Those were the two points businesses objected to this time.

FAQ

Did Meta cancel the new business terms?

Meta paused them. They will not take effect on November 20, 2026, and the existing terms remain in effect. Meta has not given a new date.

Could Meta train AI on my website?

The first draft would have let Meta use content from websites linked to a business account to develop and train its products. Meta removed the word "train" on October 16, then paused the terms.

Sources

• Meta Business Help Center: terms update paused, Nov 5, 2026