Social media platform Reddit filed a lawsuit on Wednesday against Perplexity and 3 other AI firms, alleging that the companies have been illegally scraping its users’ data via secondary sources.
Apart from Perplexity, the other companies named in the lawsuit are Oxylabs UAB, AWMProxy, and SerpApi.
Reddit’s Chief Legal Officer Ben Lee said that data scrapers bypass technological protections to steal data, then sell it to clients for training material.
He also said Reddit is a prime target as it’s one of the largest and most dynamic collections of human conversations ever created.
Perplexity said on the same day that it is yet to receive the lawsuit but promises to defend itself vigorously.
SerpApi spokesperson Ryan Schafer said in a statement that “we strongly disagree with Reddit’s allegations and intend to vigorously defend ourselves in court.”, as per a Bloomberg Law report.
Earlier this year, Reddit filed another lawsuit against Anthromorphic saying the company refused to listen to its appeals to stop using its content.
Perplexity AI was founded in 2022 by co-founders Aravind Srinivas, Denis Yarats, Johnny Ho, and Andy Konwinski.