According to Bloomberg Business, Perplexity AI Inc. is facing serious legal challenges from major tech companies over its aggressive data practices. Last week, Amazon.com Inc. sued Perplexity to stop its Comet web browser’s autonomous AI agent from browsing Amazon’s store on customers’ behalf. Just a week earlier, Reddit Inc. alleged that Perplexity, working with three data companies, was illegally circumventing controls to scrape billions of posts from the platform. The CEO of cybersecurity firm Cloudflare Inc. went so far as to compare Perplexity’s behavior to “North Korean hackers” rather than a legitimate AI company. Despite positioning itself as a freedom fighter for the open web, Perplexity is becoming company non grata among its tech peers.
The Aggressive Playbook
Here’s the thing about Perplexity’s approach: they’re playing hardball in an industry that’s still figuring out the rules. Their “answer engine” – they really don’t want you calling it a chatbot – is supposed to democratize information like Google once did. But when you’re scraping billions of Reddit posts against their will and having AI agents autonomously browse Amazon stores, you’re not just democratizing – you’re potentially violating terms of service and copyright laws.
And that Cloudflare CEO comment? Ouch. Comparing an AI company to North Korean hackers isn’t exactly the kind of PR you want when you’re trying to build trust. It suggests Perplexity’s methods might be crossing from aggressive into potentially illegal territory. The question is whether this is just growing pains for a disruptive startup or a fundamental problem with their business model.
Big Tech Fights Back
What’s really interesting here is seeing Amazon and Reddit – two very different companies – both taking legal action within a week. Amazon’s lawsuit specifically targets Comet’s autonomous browsing capability, which essentially lets AI agents act on users’ behalf. That’s a direct threat to Amazon’s control over the shopping experience and potentially their affiliate revenue streams.
Reddit’s complaint about scraping billions of posts hits even closer to home. After going public and licensing their data to AI companies like Google, Reddit has every incentive to protect their content goldmine. When companies like Perplexity try to access that data without paying, it’s basically cutting into Reddit’s new revenue stream. So we’re seeing established platforms drawing clear lines in the sand about who gets to use their data and how.
The Coming AI Data Wars
This whole situation highlights a much bigger battle brewing in the AI space. As companies like Perplexity develop more sophisticated tools, they’re running into the same fundamental problem: AI needs massive amounts of data to train and operate, but that data belongs to someone. We’re entering an era where data access might become the new competitive moat.
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So where does this leave Perplexity? They’re either visionary disruptors challenging outdated web norms, or they’re playing too fast and loose with other companies’ property. Probably a bit of both. But one thing’s clear: the era of AI companies quietly scraping whatever data they want is ending fast. The walls are going up, and Perplexity just became the test case for what happens when you try to climb over them.
