A US judge has largely allowed Reddit’s lawsuit against web-scraping service SerpApi to proceed, finding that Reddit plausibly alleged a conspiracy with Perplexity AI to circumvent Google’s access controls and obtain Reddit content through search results. The case matters because a victory for Reddit could strengthen platforms’ ability to require AI companies and scrapers to obtain licences for content, including material users later delete.

The ruling differs from a recent setback for Google in a similar case because Reddit pointed to specific licensing terms restricting use of its data, rather than relying on general claims of permission to display copyrighted material. Reddit says millions of posts are deleted every month and argues that scraped copies in Perplexity’s answer engine undermine its removal promises, reputation and revenue; it is seeking injunctions against access, circumvention of Google SearchGuard and use of previously scraped data.