Reddit Sues Perplexity and Others Over Alleged Mass Scraping of User Comments
Reddit has filed a lawsuit against AI company Perplexity, Lithuanian data-scraping firm Oxylabs UAB, Texas-based startup SerpApi, and web domain AWMProxy, accusing them of illegally extracting millions of Reddit user comments for commercial use. The social media platform described the activity as an “industrial-scale, unlawful” scheme, signaling growing concerns over how AI companies source online content for training purposes. This marks Reddit’s second major legal action against the AI industry, following a similar case against Anthropic in June.
Perplexity, which operates an AI-powered “answer engine,” defended itself, calling Reddit’s lawsuit a “sad example” of the risks of public data forming a core part of a company’s business model. The company denied ignoring licensing requests, stating that as an “application-layer company” it does not train AI models and therefore cannot enter into content licensing agreements. Perplexity further accused Reddit of using “strong-arm tactics” by demanding payment despite the company’s lawful access to Reddit data, and vowed not to be “extorted” or used in negotiations against larger competitors like Google.
The legal dispute centers on the infrastructure AI firms use to collect training data, with Reddit previously signing licensing agreements with Google, OpenAI, and others for lawful use of its user-generated content. Reddit’s licensing deals have become an important revenue source, especially ahead of its public listing last year. Perplexity claims its use of Reddit content is limited to summarizing discussions and citing threads, a practice it argues is essential for verifying AI-generated answers, while the industry faces increasing scrutiny over data acquisition practices.
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