Social media giant Reddit has launched a significant legal battle, suing artificial intelligence company Perplexity AI and three other entities for their alleged involvement in an “industrial-scale, unlawful” economy dedicated to “scraping” the comments of millions of Reddit users for commercial gain. The lawsuit, filed in a New York federal court, targets San Francisco-based Perplexity, known for its AI chatbot and “answer engine” that competes with major players like Google and ChatGPT. Also named in the suit are Lithuanian data-scraping firm Oxylabs UAB, a web domain identified as AWMProxy (which Reddit describes as a “former Russian botnet”), and Texas-based startup SerpApi, a company that lists Perplexity as a customer on its website.

This marks Reddit’s second such legal action, following a lawsuit against another prominent AI company, Anthropic, in June. However, the current lawsuit stands out as it not only confronts an AI company directly but also targets the lesser-known services that the AI industry relies on to acquire vast amounts of online writings essential for training AI chatbots. Ben Lee, Reddit’s chief legal officer, emphasized the seriousness of the issue, stating, “Scrapers bypass technological protections to steal data, then sell it to clients hungry for training material. Reddit is a prime target because it’s one of the largest and most dynamic collections of human conversation ever created.”

Perplexity AI issued a statement noting it had not yet received the lawsuit but vowed to “always fight vigorously for users’ rights to freely and fairly access public knowledge,” asserting that its approach remains principled and responsible in providing factual answers with accurate AI, and that it “will not tolerate threats against openness and the public interest.” Ryan Schafer, SerpApi’s customer success director, expressed strong disagreement with Reddit’s allegations and affirmed the company’s intent to vigorously defend itself in court. Oxylabs and AWMProxy did not immediately provide comments.

Reddit’s lawsuit employs a vivid analogy, likening the defendant companies to “would-be bank robbers” who, unable to breach the vault, target the armored truck instead. The legal filing accuses the entities of evading Reddit’s anti-scraping measures while also “circumventing Google’s controls and scraping Reddit content directly from Google’s search engine results.” Lee further explained that these companies mask their identities, conceal their locations, and disguise their web scrapers to illicitly obtain Reddit content from Google Search, with Perplexity allegedly acting as a willing customer, opting to buy stolen data rather than entering into a lawful agreement with Reddit.

This argument mirrors Reddit’s prior lawsuit against Anthropic, where it alleged that Anthropic ignored requests to cease using its content. That case, initially filed in California Superior Court, has been moved to federal court, with a hearing scheduled for January. Websites like Wikipedia and Reddit, alongside digitized books and news articles, are recognized as invaluable repositories of written materials crucial for teaching AI assistants the nuances of human language.

Notably, Reddit has proactively engaged in licensing agreements with major technology companies, including Google and OpenAI. These agreements allow these companies to legally train their AI systems on the public commentary generated by Reddit’s more than 100 million daily users. Such licensing deals were instrumental in enabling the 20-year-old online platform to raise capital ahead of its successful Wall Street debut as a publicly traded company last year, underscoring the commercial value and importance of its user-generated content in the rapidly evolving AI landscape.