Archive · 5 Aug 2025
Cloudflare Accuses Perplexity of Secret Web Scraping
Cloudflare says Perplexity, an AI company, was secretly taking information from websites that told it not to.
Cloudflare says Perplexity was using tricks to hide its actions.
Perplexity says this isn't true.
They explain their AI only gets information when people ask it a question, not by taking all the info.
This brings up important questions about how AI uses the internet.
Cloudflare accuses Perplexity of scraping content from websites that blocked it.
Perplexity allegedly hid its identity to bypass blocking measures.
Cloudflare detected the behavior across numerous domains and requests.
Perplexity denies the accusations, claiming its methods differ from traditional scraping.
Perplexity states it only retrieves information in response to user queries.
- Who
- Cloudflare and the AI company Perplexity.
- What
- Cloudflare accused Perplexity of unauthorized web scraping.
- When
- The accusations and responses were recent.
- Where
- The conflict involves the internet and accessed content.
- Why
- Disagreement over web scraping ethics and how AI accesses data.
Cloudflare's Stance
Perplexity's Response
Web Scraping Practices
Cloudflare's Stance
Perplexity bypassed blocks to scrape content.
Perplexity's Response
Perplexity's user-driven agents fetch content only when requested, not by mass scraping.
- Accuser
- Cloudflare
- Accused
- Perplexity
- Allegation
- Covert web scraping
- Perplexity's Defense
- Denial of traditional scraping methods
- Focus
- Ethical web scraping practices
