Amazon said it was reviewing claims that the artificial intelligence (AI) startup Perplexity AI was scraping content without approval, including content from prominent news sites.
The firm's spokesperson, Samantha Mayowa, confirmed Friday (June 28) that it assessed the information they received from WIRED after the news outlet published an investigative report earlier this month.
The investigation revealed that Perplexity, which uses servers by Amazon Web Services (AWS), appeared to scrape content from websites that had prohibited access from such practices.
Perplexity is financially backed by the family fund of Amazon owner Jeff Bezos and by Nvidia.
Perplexity Denies Claims of Illegal Scraping
Mayowa said in a statement obtained by the Associated Press that Amazon's terms of service "prohibit abusive and illegal activities" and that its customers were responsible for complying with such terms.
On the other hand, Perplexity spokesperson Sara Plantick responded Friday that the company determined that services it controls were not scraping on websites in a manner that violates AWS terms of service, despite multiple claims that it was committing plagiarism.
It is understood that Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas previously defended the firm after it published a news story with information and similar wording to an investigative story published initially by Forbes without citing the outlet or asking for its permission.
The AP separately reported that another Perplexity product invented fake quotes from real people.
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