A class action lawsuit alleges hidden trackers gave Meta and Google access to every conversation on Perplexity’s platform. Even in Incognito mode.
You know that thing where you ask an AI search engine something deeply personal because it feels private? Your tax strategy. Your family finances. Your medical questions. The stuff you’d never type into Google because you know Google is watching.
Turns out Perplexity was sending it to Google anyway.
A class action lawsuit filed today in federal court in San Francisco accuses Perplexity AI of secretly sharing user conversations with Meta and Google through hidden tracking software embedded in the platform’s code.
The complaint is specific. The moment you log into Perplexity’s homepage, trackers download onto your device. Those trackers allegedly give Meta and Google full access to your conversations with the AI search engine. Not metadata. Not aggregated analytics. Your actual conversations.
The plaintiff is a man from Utah who says he shared financial information, tax details, and personal investment strategies with Perplexity’s chatbot. Information he never would have shared if he knew it was being forwarded to the two largest advertising companies on the planet.
The Incognito Mode Detail Is the Worst Part
Perplexity offers an “Incognito” mode. The name implies privacy. The lawsuit alleges it delivers none. According to the complaint, the hidden trackers operate even when users enable Incognito mode, meaning the privacy feature that’s supposed to protect your conversations does nothing to stop the data from reaching Meta and Google.
That’s not a bug. If the allegations are true, that’s a product decision. Someone at Perplexity looked at a feature called “Incognito” and decided it didn’t need to actually work as advertised.
What Perplexity and Meta Are Saying
Perplexity spokesperson Jesse Dwyer told Bloomberg: “We have not been served any lawsuit that matches this description, so we are unable to verify its existence or claims.” Which is the legal equivalent of “no comment” dressed up in a blazer.
Meta pointed to a Facebook help page that says it’s against their rules for advertisers to send them sensitive information. Google didn’t respond at all.
The lawsuit also names Meta and Google directly, accusing them of violating federal and state computer privacy and fraud laws for receiving and exploiting the data.
This Isn’t Perplexity’s First Legal Problem
This is the second active lawsuit Perplexity is dealing with right now. Amazon is also suing them over their Comet automated shopping system, alleging Perplexity accessed customer accounts without permission. A federal judge already blocked Perplexity from accessing Amazon through the Comet browser.
For a company positioning itself as the trustworthy alternative to Google Search, the pattern is not great. We reviewed Perplexity AI recently and gave it strong marks for search quality. The product genuinely works well. But a product that works well while quietly forwarding your conversations to the exact companies you were trying to avoid is a different value proposition than the one Perplexity is selling.
What You Should Do Right Now
If you use Perplexity, especially the free tier, assume your conversations are not private until this gets resolved. Don’t share financial information, medical details, or anything you wouldn’t want Meta or Google to have.
If you’re looking for AI tools that keep your data local, open source options like OpenClaw run entirely on your machine and never send data to third parties. For AI assistance that’s transparent about its data practices, Claude Pro is worth considering as an alternative.
The case is Doe v. Perplexity AI Inc., filed in the Northern District of California. If certified as a class action, millions of Perplexity users could be eligible to join.
The AI tool that was supposed to replace Google might have been feeding Google your data the whole time. Let that one sit for a second.
