Reddit has filed a lawsuit against an AI search engine called Perplexity, claiming it conspired with several companies to scrape Reddit content from Google search results. The complaint alleges that Perplexity used this illegally obtained content to create answers for users’ queries.
Perplexity denied any wrongdoing, stating its “answer engine” simply summarized Reddit discussions and cited threads in answers like anyone else on the platform. However, the lawsuit claims Perplexity was “red-handed” stealing content from Google’s search results pages (SERPs) and incorporating it into its answer engine without permission.
The company suggested that by suing Perplexity, Reddit is actually trying to extort licensing fees for its content, despite knowing that Perplexity does not use its training data. Instead, the lawsuit appears to be a “show of force” in Reddit’s negotiations with Google and OpenAI over access to training data.
Source: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/10/reddit-sues-to-block-perplexity-from-scraping-google-search-results