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

A proposed class action lawsuit filed this week alleges that Perplexity AI's search engine is secretly sharing users' entire chat conversations with Google and Meta, regardless of whether they use the platform's 'Incognito Mode.' The complaint, filed by an anonymous user 'John Doe,' claims that opening prompts, follow-up questions, and complete chat transcripts are transmitted to the ad giants via trackers like the Facebook Meta Pixel and Google Ads. Disturbingly, this data allegedly includes personally identifiable information (PII) such as email addresses, even for paid subscribers who have the privacy feature turned on. The lawsuit describes Incognito Mode as a 'sham' that does nothing to prevent third-party data sharing.

The lawsuit highlights the extreme sensitivity of the data being shared, noting that users frequently turn to AI for private matters like managing taxes, seeking legal advice, and researching health conditions. The complaint cites an example where Perplexity, in response to a query about liver cancer treatment, encourages users to upload specific medical records for interpretation. This sensitive information, if shared with advertising platforms, could lead to users being targeted with 'overwhelming, disturbing, or physically deleterious' ads. The suit accuses Perplexity, Google, and Meta of putting profits over privacy by designing systems to operate 'surreptitiously' and exploiting user data for advertising and resale without proper disclosure or consent, in potential violation of state and federal wiretapping and privacy laws.