Reddit Sues Perplexity for Data Scraping: 5 Things to Know

Reddit has accused Perplexity of illegally scraping its content to train its AI search engine. However, it’s not only Perplexity, the social media giant has accused other companies as well. Here’s everything you need to know about this issue: 

What Happened?

Reddit sued Perplexity and three other companies in a New York federal court on Wednesday. The complaint claims these companies bypassed Reddit’s data protection measures to steal content needed for Perplexity’s “answer engine” AI system.

Who’s Involved?

The lawsuit names Lithuania-based Oxylabs, Russia-based AWMProxy, and Texas-based SerpApi as data-scraping companies. Reddit alleges that Perplexity worked with at least one of them to access Reddit data without permission.

A History of Legal Battles

Reddit has a history of legal action against AI platforms. Earlier this year, it sued Anthropic, the company behind the Claude chatbot, for unauthorized scraping. That case claims Anthropic made over 100,000 requests to Reddit servers, circumventing protections like robots.txt files.

The Bigger AI Issue

According to Reddit’s Chief Legal Officer Ben Lee, “AI companies are locked in an arms race for quality human content,” fueling what he calls an industrial-scale “data laundering” economy.

Court Battles Ahead

Perplexity has denied the allegations and says it will vigorously defend itself. Other companies named in the suit, including SerpApi and Oxylabs, have also expressed intent to protect against the claims. Reddit is seeking unspecified monetary damages and an injunction to stop Perplexity from using its content.

Perplexity’s response: “Our approach remains principled and responsible as we provide factual answers with accurate AI, and we will not tolerate threats against openness and the public interest,” the company said in a statement.