Perplexity AI Sued for Secretly Sharing User Data with Meta and Google
Perplexity AI Inc. faces a federal lawsuit in San Francisco alleging the company secretly embedded trackers that transmit user conversations to Meta and Google in violation of California privacy laws.
Key Points
- Class-action lawsuit filed in federal court in San Francisco
- Perplexity allegedly embedded undetectable tracking software
- User conversations transmitted to Meta and Google
- Claims violate California privacy laws
Full Details
Perplexity AI Inc. has been hit with a proposed class-action complaint filed in federal court in San Francisco, accusing the AI search engine of surreptitiously sharing users' personal information with Meta Platforms Inc. and Alphabet Inc.'s Google. According to the complaint filed Tuesday, trackers are downloaded onto users' devices as soon as they log into Perplexity's homepage, giving Meta and Google full access to conversations between users and Perplexity's AI search engine. The lawsuit claims this allows Meta and Google to exploit the sensitive data for their own benefit, including targeting individuals with advertising and reselling their sensitive data to additional third parties. The complaint alleges Perplexity embedded 'undetectable' tracking software into the search engine's code that automatically transmits users' conversations to Meta, Google and other third parties in violation of California privacy laws.
Why It Matters
This lawsuit highlights growing concerns about AI companies' data practices and could set important precedents for privacy protections in the AI era, potentially forcing stricter regulations on how AI companies handle user conversations.
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