Consumer Apps · Social/Messaging · Private litigation
Headline
Reddit's lawsuit against Perplexity and data-scraping firms (Oct. 2025) describes their scraping as 'industrial-scale' and unlawful, and its chief legal officer says scrapers 'bypass technological protections to steal'…
Reddit's lawsuit against Perplexity and data-scraping firms (Oct. 2025) describes their scraping as 'industrial-scale' and unlawful, and its chief legal officer says scrapers 'bypass technological protections to steal data, then sell it' — while Reddit ITSELF earns revenue selling licenses (Reddit reports 'other revenue', which grew on the back of content-licensing deals, of $114.7 million in 2024 and $140.0 million in 2025, about 6% of 2025 revenue; it does not break out AI licensing alone) to Google and OpenAI for the exact same user comments it's suing Anthropic and Perplexity for taking without paying. Reddit frames its lawsuits as protecting users' privacy and deletion rights — but the underlying business model is unmistakable: your posts and comments have become a commercial product Reddit sells to AI companies, and the legal fight is really over who's allowed to pay for access, not whether your words end up training an AI at all.
- Severity
- Evidence tierUnassigned
- Claims confirmed
- Last verified2026-08-04
Case status. Private litigation; the legal tier of its sources has not been assigned yet.
Primary source. www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/reddit-sues-ai-company-over-alleged-industrial-scale-scraping-of-its-users-comments — Verified - primary source confirmed.
Terms
Arbitration
Standard binding arbitration + class action waiver expected (not independently confirmed word-for-word this pass).
Data sharing
Reddit has publicly licensed large volumes of user-generated content to AI companies (e.g., Google, OpenAI) for model training under paid data-licensing deals — a practice distinct from most other platforms in this audit in that Reddit is monetizing USER POSTS/COMMENTS themselves (not just behavioral/location data) as a core revenue line; specific consumer lawsuit/settlement details not independently confirmed this pass.
Fees and billing
Not itemized this pass.
Contacts
Privacy contact. Not recorded.
Legal notice. Not verified this pass. If publicly traded: SEC Form 10-K cover page gives the official corporate address; the Secretary of State business-entity search in the state of incorporation gives the registered agent, which must accept service. If private: the state registered agent is usually the only reliable route.
Mailing address. Not recorded.
Evidence
| Claim | Kind | Support | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Reddit's lawyer describes the AI industry's data scraping as an 'industrial-scale data laundering economy.' | fact | contradicted | none recorded |
| 2. Reddit earns roughly $130 million a year from AI data licensing. | fact | unsupported | 1 (0 confirmed) |
| 3. That licensing revenue is about 10% of Reddit's total revenue. | fact | unsupported | 1 (0 confirmed) |
| 4. Reddit sells data licenses to Google and OpenAI. | fact | supported | none recorded |
| 5. Reddit is suing Anthropic and Perplexity for taking user comments without paying. | fact | supported | none recorded |
| 6. Reddit frames its lawsuits as protecting users' privacy and deletion rights. | fact | unsupported | none recorded |
| 7. Your posts have become a commercial product, and the legal fight is really over who may pay for access, not whether your words train an AI. | characterization | n/a | none recorded |
0 of 7 claims have a confirmed source of their own.
Sources
| Source | Claim | Tier | Status | Quote |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| none | Claim 2 | Unassigned | not found | No quote recorded. Quote basis: not recorded. |
| none | Claim 3 | Unassigned | not found | No quote recorded. Quote basis: not recorded. |
Source vault
Link status: Candidate - not yet fetched
| Document | Last fetch | |
|---|---|---|
| Privacy policy redditinc.com/policies/privacy-policy | Not fetched yet | NO (HTML only) |
| Terms of service redditinc.com/policies/user-agreement | Not fetched yet | NO (HTML only) |
| Website No URL recorded | Not fetched yet | — |
| Primary source https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/reddit-sues-ai-company-over-alleged-industrial-scale-scraping-of-its-users-comments Verification: Verified - primary source confirmed | Not fetched yet | — |
Enforcement
No enforcement actions are linked to this row.
State statute
No HQ state on file, so no state statute applies by headquarters.