Brussels: Digital publishers and advertisers asked the European Commission on 22 October 2026 to suspend the new Meta commercial terms before they take effect on 30 October, arguing that the clause gives Meta a free hand to use web content for its artificial intelligence services. The Movement for an Open Web, a group whose members include advertisers and publishers, filed the request in Brussels and with the UK Competition and Markets Authority. It also asked both regulators to impose interim measures.

Tim Cowen, co-founder of the group, said: “Meta’s new terms are clearly anti-competitive.” He added that “the terms would give Meta a free hand to scrape content from nearly every website in the world.” The complainants argue that the Meta commercial terms stretch the company’s access beyond material shared on its own platforms to the wider web.

Meta rejects that reading of the Meta commercial terms. The company says the consolidated crawling terms apply only to its advertising and business products, and it says it has clarified this in the text. “It does not change how Meta uses web crawlers,” Meta said, adding: “As always, content owners can use robots.txt to signal their preferences.”

German publishers moved first. According to MLex reporting dated 20 October 2026, German digital publishers’ associations lodged a separate complaint with the Commission. They say the revised clause infringes Meta’s obligation to grant business users fair and reasonable conditions and amounts to an abuse of a dominant position. Germany’s BDZV and MVFP raised similar concerns earlier this week, and the European Publishers Council did so the week before, which shows how widely the Meta commercial terms worry the news industry.

The Commission confirmed that it has received the complaint and will assess it under its usual procedure. It said it is committed to ensuring that Meta’s practices comply with EU law. The UK regulator met Meta on Wednesday and described itself as in “urgent discussions” while it considers next steps, according to a Reuters report.

The request for interim measures sets a high bar. Complainants must show serious and irreparable damage, and the Commission would have to act within days to stop the Meta commercial terms from applying on 30 October. Brussels has used that emergency tool only rarely, so a decision against Meta would mark a notable step in EU antitrust enforcement.

The legal questions are well known to competition lawyers. Article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU bans the abuse of a dominant position, and the complaint’s language on fair and reasonable access resembles the conditions that the Digital Markets Act imposes on large social networks. The Commission’s competition policy site explains how antitrust complaints and interim measures work.

The Commission has not said whether it will open a formal investigation, and Meta has shown no sign of withdrawing the clause. Publishers, advertisers and regulators in Brussels and London will therefore watch 30 October closely, because the Meta commercial terms could set a precedent for how platforms treat open web content in the age of generative AI.