Social media giant Reddit has sued AI startup Perplexity, claiming it illegally scraped Reddit’s data to train its AI-powered search and “answer engine.” Filed in New York federal court, the lawsuit also names Oxylabs, AWMProxy, and SerpApi as collaborators in the unauthorized data collection effort.
Reddit alleges that the companies evaded security barriers to access billions of user posts and comments without consent. The platform stated that while it has formal licensing deals with OpenAI and Google, Perplexity has no such agreement. The lawsuit follows a broader trend of content creators pushing back against what they describe as AI companies’ misuse of copyrighted data.
Perplexity denied wrongdoing, saying it would “vigorously defend” its practices, while Reddit argues the startup has massively increased its use of Reddit content despite prior warnings. The case underscores growing tension between AI firms’ hunger for data and platforms’ efforts to protect their intellectual property.
