Publisher content and AI features: UK competition watchdog opens investigation into Meta's commercial terms

On 30 October 2026 the Competition and Markets Authority, the UK's competition regulator, opened an investigation into the commercial terms Meta applies to businesses on its platforms. According to the CMA's announcement, those terms could allow Meta to collect content from the websites of businesses and publishers and use it in its own products, AI features included, without the owners being able to decide whether and how that content is used. The legal basis is Chapter II of the Competition Act 1998, which covers abuse of a dominant position. Reuters reports that, in the authority's view, the terms could amount to the unlawful imposition of “unfair trading conditions”.

The case stems from concerns raised by the News Media Association and Movement for an Open Web. The timeline set out by the CMA is a busy one: Meta had planned to change its terms on 30 October; after contact with the authority it pushed the start date back to 20 November, and on 28 October, two days before the investigation opened, it paused the rollout pending consultation with industry bodies. It is not clear which version of the terms is being challenged in detail, nor whether the pause will hold. The companies under investigation are Meta Platforms, Inc., Facebook UK Limited and Facebook Ireland Limited, and the probe may be extended to other group companies. Because Meta has not been designated as having “strategic market status” under the UK's new digital markets regime, the CMA is using its ordinary Competition Act powers.

The CMA's chief executive, Sarah Cardell, acknowledged that digital platforms play an important role in helping UK businesses reach millions of customers, but added that a company in a dominant position must not use that position to impose unfair terms, and that the authority, having heard the concerns of publishers and other businesses, is acting quickly. The timetable, which the CMA describes as indicative, provides for rapid information gathering until January 2027; after that the authority may close the case or, if it provisionally finds an infringement, issue a statement of objections. The CMA stresses that it has not decided whether Meta has broken competition law and that no infringement should be assumed at this stage; according to Reuters, Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The CMA is also asking Meta for information about its Meta One subscription and about concerns from the Federation of Small Businesses over external links on Facebook and Instagram: these issues fall outside the investigation, and no formal action has been decided on them.

This is one of the first cases in which a competition authority has explicitly challenged the terms under which a major platform can reuse publishers' content to power its own AI features, and it is part of the wider conflict between publishers and AI companies. Nor is it the first clash between the CMA and Meta: in 2021 the authority investigated the use of advertisers' data, closing the case in 2023 with binding commitments.

What strikes me is that the question the CMA is asking is not how much the content is worth, but who has the right to decide whether it can be used. It is a precise question, but to get there the authority will first have to establish whether Meta is dominant in a relevant UK market: everything else depends on that first step, which is still open.

— Olya