Reddit has filed a lawsuit against AI company Perplexity for allegedly scraping its platform to train its AI search engine. The case also names three other companies that provide data-scraping tools.
Reddit claims Perplexity accessed its content without permission and used it to generate responses through its “answer engine.” The platform says it is one of the most commonly referenced sources in AI models, and companies must follow its data access policies if they want to use its content. Reddit noted that companies like Google and OpenAI have complied with these policies.
Perplexity responded by saying its approach is “principled and responsible” and stated it would not be deterred from what it describes as support for openness and the public interest.
The other companies listed in the suit are Oxylabs (Lithuania), AWMProxy (Russia), and SerpApi (Texas). Reddit claims these firms offer tools that bypass its anti-scraping protections and avoid Google’s safeguards to pull data from search results. Oxylabs and SerpApi have stated they plan to defend themselves. AWMProxy has not issued a statement.
According to Reddit, they sent Perplexity a cease-and-desist letter last year, but the company allegedly increased its use of Reddit content afterward.
Reddit is asking the New York federal court for monetary damages and an order preventing Perplexity from using its data. This marks Reddit’s second recent legal action related to AI training, following a similar case against Anthropic earlier this year.
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