The whole point is that 17 may 2025 is the earliest date
I see, so the question isn't specifically the existence of the content policy prior to Saturday's release, but the entire compliance page. Looking at some snapshots on archive.today it does appear that the Terms & Policies page was not in the sidebar where it's found now as recently as 4/4/2025 (
https://archive.vn/dFwog). The Privacy Policy page did exist as it's own page for the entirety of 2023 (
https://archive.vn/https://mangadex.org/privacy). Which matches along with it not being update since 2022.
No idea where it went for 2024 and 2025. I guess they moved it to the compliance page before going live with it, which may mean creating the compliance page has been something they've been working on for longer than the DMCAs have been a thing.
I can't say for certain that some of these other sections in the compliance page weren't being kept elsewhere as well.
My take on the actual inclusion of the "permission" content policy on uploading, is that it matches along with one of the rules that's been around since 2022 and is just there to satisfy an exemption that may or may not exist. Upload Restrictions 2.1 (now Content Restriction 1.2) mentions that uploading official releases is not allowed, unless with an exemption. One of which is permission granted from the publisher. The language of Upload Restrictions from 2022 and Content Restrictions from today implies that "official release" refers to both the official translation and the "raw"
The 2022 rule page was changed to the current one in 2023 (
https://archive.vn/5qH5r#selection-713.17-713.336)
tl;dr
I think the content policy thing is probably nothing. Just a, "you have permission, right? wink wink nudge nudge.," kinda thing that isn't gonna be used (like before). I doubt all the chapters that got uploaded today had permission.
I think the compliance page is just their official legal framework that they finally finished putting together, since they had part of it in the form of the Privacy Policy before.