It’s becoming a common headline: another week, another massive lawsuit against an AI giant. But the latest legal battle facing Perplexity AI hits closer to home for anyone who values their privacy.
A new proposed class-action lawsuit, filed by a user in Utah, claims that Perplexity hasn't just been "tracking" users— it’s been surreptitiously funneling their most intimate conversations directly to Meta and Alphabet’s Google.
The ‘incognito’ illusion
The most damning allegation in the suit? That Perplexity's Incognito mode—the feature users trust to keep their searches off the record—doesn't actually stop the data flow.
According to the complaint, as soon as a user lands on Perplexity’s homepage, "undetectable" tracking software is downloaded to their device. This allows Meta and Google to "intercept" full transcripts of AI conversations, even when the user has explicitly opted for privacy. For the Utah plaintiff (identified as John Doe), this allegedly included sensitive details about his family finances, tax obligations and personal investment strategies.
Alleged misuse of sensitive user information
The anonymous plaintiff, identified as “John Doe,” outlines his claims in a 140-page complaint, alleging that hidden trackers were used to send full transcripts of user conversations to Meta and Google. According to the filing, this data sharing allegedly occurred even when Perplexity’s “Incognito” mode was enabled.
All three companies are accused of violating privacy laws, including California’s “wiretapping” laws.
“No reasonable person would have expected that Perplexity would share complete transcripts of their conversations … with companies like Meta and Google,” the plaintiff states in the complaint. “The intimate health and financial information that users regularly share with Perplexity is some of the most private information about a user.”
The plaintiff says he used Perplexity to search topics related to taxes, family finances, and personal investments, believing those interactions were private. He later claims he discovered that partial transcripts of those conversations were allegedly shared with Meta and Google each time he used the platform.
The complaint also alleges that Perplexity shared users’ prompt history and email addresses with Meta and Google when they signed up for a free account.
In one example cited, a user asking, “What is the best treatment for liver cancer?” would have had the full prompt transmitted via a URL intercepted in the browser and sent to Meta and Google, according to the filing.
The lawsuit argues that this type of data sharing could expose users to highly targeted advertising that may feel “overwhelming, disturbing, or, in many instances, physically deleterious.”
According to reports, Perplexity denies the claims. Jesse Dwyer, the company’s chief communications officer, said the company has not been served with any lawsuit matching this description and cannot verify the allegations.
Bottom line
Perplexity is facing mounting legal scrutiny — and this isn’t the first time.
The company was recently hit with a temporary injunction tied to its Comet AI tool, which a judge ruled could no longer scrape certain websites without permission. Amazon argued that Perplexity’s Comet browser accessed its site without authorization, presenting evidence that convinced the court to act.
Now, with another lawsuit emerging, the controversy could make users think twice about what they share with Perplexity’s chatbot — and other AI tools they’ve come to trust.
