Lawsuit claims Perplexity sent user chats to Google and Meta via trackers

In short: A lawsuit filed in San Francisco claims Perplexity AI secretly sent users’ chat messages to Google and Meta through hidden tracking code, including in Incognito mode.

What happened

A class-action lawsuit was filed on April 1, 2026, in federal court in San Francisco. The case is Doe v. Perplexity AI Inc., Case No. 3:26-cv-02803. It names Perplexity, Google, and Meta as defendants.

The complaint says Perplexity embedded “hidden trackers” in its site. Trackers are small bits of code that can report what you do online (like a digital receptionist taking notes and sending them elsewhere). The lawsuit claims these trackers transmitted full user conversations, including sensitive financial, investment, and tax information, to Meta and Google for advertising-related purposes.

The plaintiff, a Utah man identified as John Doe, argues that this happened without user consent. The complaint also claims the trackers were hard to detect, turned on after a user logged in, and still worked even when someone used Incognito mode. Incognito mode is supposed to limit what gets saved on your device, but it does not automatically block information from being sent to other companies.

Ars Technica reports that Perplexity said it has not been served with the lawsuit yet. No public responses from Perplexity, Google, or Meta were available at the time of reporting. The allegations have not been proven in court.

Why it matters

Many people use AI chat tools to ask personal questions they would not post publicly. If the lawsuit’s claims are true, it would raise privacy concerns about where those conversations can end up, and what “private” browsing modes really protect.

Source: Arstechnica