Cloudflare Accuses Perplexity AI of Evading Website Blocks with Stealth Crawlers

Cloudflare has taken action against Perplexity AI, alleging the startup employed deceptive web scraping tactics to bypass publisher restrictions. The infrastructure provider removed Perplexity from its verified bots program after detecting crawlers rotating IP addresses and masquerading as legitimate browsers to access prohibited content.

The confrontation highlights growing tensions between AI companies hungry for training data and publishers seeking to protect proprietary content. Perplexity, valued at $18 billion following a recent funding round, denies violating any policies and dismissed Cloudflare's technical evidence as marketing material.

This dispute emerges as the AI sector faces increasing scrutiny over data sourcing practices. Nvidia-backed Perplexity, founded by former OpenAI and Facebook AI researchers, represents one of several startups pushing boundaries in generative AI development while navigating complex copyright landscapes.