Cloudflare Alleges Perplexity Ignored Site Restrictions on AI Scraping

2025-08-04 · TechCrunch AI · Original

Cloudflare, a prominent internet infrastructure company, has raised concerns that Perplexity, an AI-driven platform, has been actively crawling and scraping websites despite explicit requests from some site owners to refrain from such activities. According to Cloudflare, their detection systems have flagged instances where Perplexity bypassed technical barriers put in place by clients to protect their content. This revelation has sparked a debate about the ethical implications of AI scraping practices and the responsibilities of AI companies to respect website owners' preferences. As the use of AI continues to grow, the tension between data access and content ownership has become increasingly significant. Experts are now calling for clearer guidelines and regulations to ensure responsible AI usage, emphasizing the need for mutual respect between technology and content creators. This situation highlights the ongoing challenge of balancing innovation in the AI sector with the rights of individuals and businesses to control their digital assets.