US EditionWhat Perplexity Is Doing Closely Resembles What North Korean Hackers Do, Says Cloudflare CEO
GLOBAL, AUG 4 – Cloudflare blocked Perplexity AI for evading web crawling restrictions by rotating IPs and impersonating browsers, generating over 25 million daily requests across tens of thousands of sites.
- On August 4, 2025, Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince accused Perplexity AI of stealthily scraping websites and violating anti-scraping rules.
- Cloudflare launched an investigation that found Perplexity repeatedly modified its user agent and IPs to evade data-scraping blocks on millions of requests daily.
- Perplexity AI published a statement clarifying that its assistants retrieve information only when prompted by users, emphasizing that they do not preemptively store or index web content.
- Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince criticized certain AI firms for operating in a manner comparable to malicious hackers from North Korea, urging that these entities be publicly identified and blocked, which underscores the ongoing conflict over AI web access.
- This event underscores tensions between AI firms and web security providers over data access, raising questions about how AI should respect site restrictions and pay for content.
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der Standard ATReposted by 
der Standard DE
der Standard DECloudflare has set a trap for Perplexity – and the AI search engine is immediately tricked into it. The approach resembles that North Korean hacker, say critics
·Vienna, Austria
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Coverage Details
Total News Sources11
Leaning Left3Leaning Right0Center2Last UpdatedBias Distribution60% Left
Bias Distribution
- 60% of the sources lean Left
60% Left
L 60%
C 40%
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