Perplexity AI controversies
Controversies tied to this brand in public sources. A listing is not a finding of fault.
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2025
BBC and Japanese publisher legal disputes
The BBC demanded that Perplexity stop unauthorized use of its material and address alleged retention of BBC content. Yomiuri Shimbun, The Asahi Shimbun, and Nikkei separately brought claims alleging unauthorized use of large quantities of newspaper content.
2025
Allegations concerning stealth web crawlers
Investigations by Wired and independent researchers, followed by Cloudflare research, alleged that Perplexity-associated crawlers used undisclosed IP infrastructure or spoofed user-agent strings and did not consistently honor robots.txt restrictions. Perplexity denied key elements of the allegations and criticized Cloudflare’s presentation.
2025
Trademark lawsuit by Perplexity Solved Solutions
Perplexity Solved Solutions sued Perplexity AI, alleging that the latter’s use of the Perplexity name infringed a registered trademark and could confuse consumers. The claimant reportedly said that an earlier offer to purchase the mark had not been accepted.
2025
Reddit data-scraping lawsuit
Reddit sued Perplexity and other companies, alleging unlawful scraping and use of Reddit data. The dispute added a platform-data dimension to the company’s existing publisher and crawler controversies.
2024
Copyright and attribution disputes with publishers
Forbes, Dow Jones, the New York Post, and The New York Times raised allegations that Perplexity reproduced, accessed, or relied on publisher content without adequate authorization or attribution. The Dow Jones and New York Post litigation also alleged that generated answers included inaccurate quotations attributed to news coverage. Perplexity disputed the characterization of its system as plagiarism and said it was open to revenue-sharing relationships.