Reddit is taking on AI company Perplexity and three other entities, accusing them of “industrial-scale” scraping of user comments for commercial use. The lawsuit, filed in a New York federal court on Wednesday, claims these companies collected millions of Reddit comments without permission.

Perplexity AI, known for its chatbot and search engine, competes with Google and ChatGPT. Also named are Lithuanian data-scraper Oxylabs, Texas startup SerpApi (which lists Perplexity as a customer), and a web domain called AWMProxy. This domain is described by Reddit as a “former Russian botnet.”

This marks Reddit’s second AI-related lawsuit this year, following a June case against Anthropic. Unlike that case, this lawsuit targets not only AI companies but also the lesser-known services. These services supply the AI industry with scraped content.

Reddit’s Chief Legal Officer, Ben Lee, said scrapers “bypass technological protections to steal data.” He called Reddit a “prime target” because it hosts one of the largest collections of human conversations online. The lawsuit accuses the defendants of unfair competition, unjust enrichment, and copyright violations.

Perplexity responded that it has not yet received the suit. They will “vigorously defend users’ rights to freely access public knowledge.” SerpApi and Oxylabs also rejected Reddit’s claims. They emphasise they will defend themselves in court.

Scraping public online data is common, but Reddit argues these companies are acting like “would-be bank robbers” by bypassing protections. They even scrape Reddit content via Google Search. Reddit claims Perplexity knowingly bought this data instead of negotiating a proper license.

The lawsuit comes as Reddit continues to license its content to AI companies like Google and OpenAI, generating revenue from its 100+ million daily users. This occurs ahead of its Wall Street debut.

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