The Oslo District Court issued an urgent temporary injunction on October 28 that stops Meta from applying its revised commercial terms for Facebook and Instagram business accounts in Norway until a court reviews whether they are lawful. The case was brought by Norway's media trade body on behalf of ten publishing groups. Meta says its existing terms stay in place while it consults publishers.
What the court decided
Mediebedriftenes Landsforening (MBL) filed for the injunction on October 27 for groups including NRK, TV 2, Schibsted, Amedia and Polaris. The court ruled the next day that the terms must be reviewed before taking effect, reportedly without first hearing Meta, and ordered Meta to pay NOK 1 million in costs according to NRK.
The dispute centres on clauses letting Meta crawl web pages linked to advertisers' products and use that content to develop advertising and business products. Publishers argue that could reach paywalled articles, photos and video, and that Meta's promise to respect robots.txt is not written into the terms.
Meta's position and the wider pushback
Meta had already moved the rollout from October 30 to November 20 after publisher complaints. Spokesperson Andy Stone said there will be a full consultation and that it could run past November 20, in which case implementation would be delayed. In his words, "until then our existing terms remain in place."
Norway is not alone. Danish and Swedish publisher groups have gone to their competition authorities, the UK CMA has opened an investigation and says Meta paused implementation, and US Senator Adam Schiff has asked Mark Zuckerberg to scrap the terms.
What it means for advertisers
For now, nobody is operating under the new terms. The current terms govern your ads everywhere, and in Norway a court order now sits on top of that. The contested package also includes the clause making advertisers responsible for output from Meta's AI features, so that change is on hold too.
The terms have not been withdrawn, though. Meta has framed this as a delay for consultation, so a revised version with a new date could still arrive, possibly with little notice during the busiest weeks of Q4.
What it means for you
- Treat November 20 as unconfirmed; the existing terms apply until Meta publishes a new date.
- Use the pause to audit Advantage+ creative enhancements you would not want to be liable for.
- If you advertise in Norway, expect the terms there to follow the court case, not the global rollout.
- Watch Business Manager and email notices for a revised terms version and acceptance prompt.
Sources
- Press Gazette: Norwegian media companies in court victory over Meta AI scraping terms
- Norway Post: Oslo District Court blocks Meta's commercial terms
