Reddit Sues Perplexity, Others Over Alleged Data Scraping (1)

Reddit Inc. sued Perplexity AI Inc. and three other companies over alleged data scraping from the discussion site without permission, a sign of the growing demand and value of original data in the burgeoning AI industry.

Three data scraping companies — Oxylabs UAB, AWMProxy, and SerpApi — have been illegally collecting Reddit data via Google search results for the purpose of reselling it, according to the complaint filed Wednesday in federal court in Manhattan. Perplexity has been buying that data from at least one of the companies, the suit alleges.

Reddit is seeking monetary damages and a court order to stop the alleged scraping and use of its data in violation of federal copyright law. Shares of the San Francisco-based company were down 6.5% at 1:45 p.m. in New York.

Reddit’s growing repository of data has become a valuable commodity given the rise in AI models that rely on massive troves of information for training and surfacing relevant results. Reddit has already inked deals with OpenAI and Alphabet Inc.’s Google to license its data for training purposes, but has taken legal action against others it believes to be using the data without a formal agreement.

Reddit sued AI firm Anthropic earlier this year in San Francisco court over similar data scraping allegations.

“AI companies are locked in an arms race for quality human content — and that pressure has fueled an industrial-scale ‘data laundering’ economy,” Ben Lee, Reddit’s chief legal officer, said in a statement shared with Bloomberg News. “Reddit is a prime target because it’s one of the largest and most dynamic collections of human conversation ever created.”

Perplexity spokesperson Beejoli Shah said the company had not yet received the lawsuit, but added that the firm “will always fight vigorously for users’ rights to freely and fairly access public knowledge.”

“Our approach remains principled and responsible as we provide factual answers with accurate AI, and we will not tolerate threats against openness and the public interest,” Shah said in an emailed statement.

SerpApi and Oxylabs did not respond to requests for comment. A spokesperson for AWMProxy, a Russian company, couldn’t be located.

The case is Reddit Inc. v. SerpApi LLC, 25-cv-08736, US District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).

(Updates throughout with additional context, comment from Perplexity and shares.)

--With assistance from Madlin Mekelburg.

To contact the reporters on this story:
Kurt Wagner in San Francisco at kwagner71@bloomberg.net;
Riley Griffin in Washington at rgriffin42@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Sarah Frier at sfrier1@bloomberg.net

Peter Blumberg, Seth Fiegerman

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