Cloudflare claims the AI startup is bypassing robots.txt restrictions to scrape content, potentially exposing Perplexity to lawsuits from publishers like Dow Jones and the BBC.

Cloudflare says Perplexity evades crawl directives with stealth tactics; Perplexity calls the claims a misunderstanding – or a PR stunt.

The feud underscores the need for new standards in AI-web interaction, as bot detection tools struggle to distinguish between helpful assistants and harmful scrapers.