HomeTechnologyPerplexity's "Incognito Mode" is a "sham," lawsuit says

Perplexity's "Incognito Mode" is a "sham," lawsuit says

TechnologyApril 3, 2026
1 min read
Perplexity's "Incognito Mode" is a "sham," lawsuit says
Google, Meta, and Perplexity accused of sharing millions of chats to increase ad revenue.
Reading Settings

Perplexity's AI search engine encourages users to go deeper with their prompts by engaging in chat sessions that a lawsuit has alleged are often shared in their entirety with Google and Meta without users' knowledge or consent.

"This happened to every user regardless of whether or not they signed up for a Perplexity account," the lawsuit alleged, while stressing that "enormous volumes of sensitive information from both subscribed and non-subscribed users" are shared.

Using developer tools, the lawsuit found that opening prompts are always shared, as are any follow-up questions the search engine asks that a user clicks on. Privacy concerns are seemingly worse for non-subscribed users, the complaint alleged. Their initial prompts are shared with "a URL through which the entire conversation may be accessed by third parties like Meta and Google."

Read full article

Comments

Source: Ars Technica

Share this article

Related Articles

It’s time to address the looming crisis in entry-level work.
May 2611 hours ago

It’s time to address the looming crisis in entry-level work.

Artificial intelligence has not so far produced a clean story of mass unemployment. Aggregate employment in developed countries remains broadly stable, and recent assessments have found limited eviden

technologyreview.com7 min read
Read More
Rethinking organizational design in the age of agentic AI
May 2611 hours ago

Rethinking organizational design in the age of agentic AI

Amid rapidly growing adoption of enterprise-level AI agents, there’s a disconnect emerging between ambition and execution.  Although 85% of organizations say they want to be agentic within the ne

technologyreview.com8 min read
Read More