CMA Opens an Investigation Into Meta's Business Terms

The Competition and Markets Authority opened an investigation on 30 October into whether Meta's commercial terms for businesses break competition law. In its announcement, the CMA says the terms could let Meta collect content from the websites of businesses that use its services, and use it to build its own products, including AI features, without those businesses getting a choice.

Meta had planned to bring the new terms in on 30 October, then moved that to 20 November. According to the CMA, Meta announced on 28 October that it was pausing the roll-out while it consults industry groups. The CMA is clear that no decision has been made on whether any law was broken, and that no one should assume it was.

If you run a Facebook or Instagram page for your business, nothing changes for you today. There is no new term to accept and nothing to switch off. The pause is the part to take from this: the terms the CMA is looking at are on hold while the case runs.

There is a second thread worth knowing about. The CMA says it is separately asking Meta for information about Meta One, the paid business subscription we reported in September. The Federation of Small Businesses has raised concerns about what it could mean for small businesses posting links to outside websites on Facebook and Instagram without paying a subscription. The CMA says it has taken no decision on formal action there, and that this sits outside today's investigation.

We can only report what the CMA has published, and that is an early-stage inquiry. The practical point is the one our guide Facebook Page or Website? What Actually Differs already makes: a page on someone else's platform runs on their terms, and those terms can change. A website you own is the one place where they cannot. If your booking link or enquiry form lives behind a social post, it is worth making sure a plain website you control sits behind it too.

The full guide: Facebook Page or Website? What Actually Differs