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Reddit Launches Legal Action To Block AI Companies From Scraping Its Data
Yahoo Financeยท 2025-10-22 19:36
Core Perspective - Reddit is taking legal action against companies that scrape its data without permission, aiming to protect its data and maximize revenue potential [2][4]. Group 1: Legal Action - Reddit has filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court to block four companies from scraping its data via Google search results instead of using the paid Reddit API [2]. - The companies involved include SerpApi, Oxylabs, AWMProxy, and Perplexity, with allegations that they sold data to AI firms like OpenAI and Meta [2]. - Reddit seeks a permanent injunction and financial damages, hoping to establish a legal precedent for data protection [2]. Group 2: Revenue Strategy - In 2023, Reddit increased its API charges to profit from the data generated by its users, as AI projects increasingly rely on Reddit for data inputs [3]. - Reddit's "Other" revenue category saw a 24% year-over-year increase in Q2, generating $35 million from data deals with AI projects [5]. - The company has signed content licensing agreements with Google and OpenAI, aiming to create value in exclusivity to incentivize payments for its data [6]. Group 3: Data Protection Measures - Reddit has implemented measures to prevent its information from being scraped or used without explicit permission and payment [4]. - The lawsuit addresses the loophole where companies are allegedly scraping data from Google instead of using the Reddit API, which undermines its data protection efforts [4].