IP Law Daily, TECHNOLOGY/INTERNET NEWS: Reddit lawsuit targets Anthropic over alleged unauthorized data scraping, (Jun 10, 2025)

By George Basharis, J.D.

The social media giant’s complaint alleges the AI startup violated user agreements, scraped content over 100,000 times despite public denials, and enriched itself by billions while offering nothing in return to Reddit or its users.

Reddit, Inc. has filed a comprehensive lawsuit against artificial intelligence (AI) startup Anthropic, PBC in San Francisco Superior Court, representing the latest legal challenge by a major social media platform against an AI company over unauthorized data use. The complaint, filed on June 4, 2025, presents five separate causes of action including breach of contract, unjust enrichment, trespass to chattels, tortious interference with contract, and unfair competition under California Business and Professions Code Section 17200 (Reddit, Inc. v. Anthropic, PBC, No. CGC-25-625892 (Cal. Super. Jun. 4, 2025)).

Allegations of systematic data scraping. The lawsuit alleges that Anthropic has been systematically scraping Reddit content dating back to December 2021, using this data to train its flagship AI product, Claude, without authorization or compensation. According to the complaint, Anthropic researchers, including its CEO, specifically identified Reddit as containing high-quality training data and used content from prominent subreddits including “explainlikeimfive,” “WritingPrompts,” “changemyview,” “todayilearned,” “askscience,” and dozens of others.

Reddit contends that Anthropic’s conduct directly violates the platform’s user agreement, which prohibits commercial exploitation of Reddit services or content without written authorization. The complaint emphasizes that Reddit’s terms clearly state that accessing or using Reddit’s services constitutes agreement to be bound by these terms, making Anthropic’s conduct a clear breach of contract.

False statements and continued violations. A particularly damaging allegation in the lawsuit concerns Anthropic’s public statements about its data collection practices. The complaint states that in July 2024, following Reddit’s public protests about unauthorized use of its content, an Anthropic spokesperson claimed the company had blocked its bots from accessing Reddit and had not added any URLs from Reddit to its crawler since mid-May 2024.

However, Reddit’s audit logs allegedly tell a different story. The complaint asserts that despite these public assurances, Anthropic’s bots continued to access Reddit’s servers more than 100,000 times in the months following the July 2024 statement. This pattern of behavior forms the basis for Reddit’s unfair competition claim, alleging fraudulent business practices through false public statements.

Contrast with licensed competitors. Reddit draws a sharp contrast between Anthropic’s alleged conduct and the behavior of other major AI companies. The lawsuit specifically highlights that OpenAI and Google have entered into formal licensing agreements with Reddit, agreeing to respect user privacy rights and to delete content when users request its removal. These licensing partnerships reportedly include meaningful guardrails to protect both Reddit and its users’ interests.

The complaint emphasizes that these legitimate licensing arrangements enable Reddit to monitor compliance through its Compliance API, which automatically notifies licensees when users delete posts or comments. Without such formal agreements, Reddit argues it cannot ensure that user deletion requests are respected by third parties accessing Reddit content.

Technical measures and user privacy protections. Central to Reddit’s argument is its implementation of various technological and policy measures designed to protect user privacy and prevent unauthorized access. The complaint details Reddit’s robots.txt file, which provides instructions for automated systems and explicitly states that access is intended only for search engines, not commercial scrapers. Reddit also employs rate limits, user identification requirements, and anomaly detection tools to prevent unauthorized automated access.

The lawsuit explains Reddit’s Public Content Policy, which the platform implemented to help users understand how their content is used and licensed. This policy allows for non-commercial uses but requires companies with commercial purposes to enter into licensing agreements that include contractual restrictions on prohibited uses, requirements to honor content deletions, and limitations on accessing certain types of content such as sexually explicit material.

Privacy policy integration and user rights. Reddit’s privacy policy, which is expressly incorporated into its user agreement, grants users significant control over their content and data. Users can delete posts and comments at any time, and Reddit’s licensing agreements require third parties to respect these deletion requests. The complaint argues that Anthropic’s unauthorized scraping undermines these privacy protections, as users have no way of knowing their data has been collected or requesting its removal from Anthropic’s systems.

The lawsuit also references the 2023 Joint Statement on Data Scraping and the Protection of Privacy, signed by privacy authorities from multiple countries including Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and others. This statement emphasized that publicly accessible personal information remains subject to privacy laws and that social media companies have obligations to protect personal information from unlawful scraping.

Economic harm and unjust enrichment claims. Reddit’s unjust enrichment claim centers on Anthropic’s alleged appropriation of valuable content to build what the complaint describes as a multi-billion-dollar business. The lawsuit notes that Anthropic has received approximately 8 billion dollars in investment from Amazon alone since 2023, and that Claude is integrated into various Amazon Web Services offerings and powers Amazon’s revamped Alexa voice assistant.

The complaint argues that Anthropic has enriched itself while Reddit and its users receive no compensation for the content that helped create this technology. Additionally, Reddit claims it has suffered direct costs from processing Anthropic’s unauthorized requests, including charges from content delivery networks and the need to employ site reliability engineers to respond to anomalous access patterns.

Tortious interference and contractual relationships. The tortious interference claim focuses on Anthropic’s alleged interference with Reddit’s contractual relationships with its users. Reddit argues that it has specific obligations to protect user privacy and allow content deletion, and that Anthropic’s unauthorized scraping prevents Reddit from fulfilling these contractual promises. The complaint alleges that Anthropic had actual knowledge of these obligations through accessing Reddit’s platform and agreeing to the user agreement, which incorporates Reddit’s privacy policy.

Relief sought. Reddit seeks comprehensive relief including compensatory damages, consequential damages, lost profits, and disgorgement of Anthropic’s profits from its use of Reddit content. The complaint also requests specific performance and an injunction prohibiting Anthropic from continuing to use Reddit data in its commercial offerings, including potentially requiring removal of technology derived from Reddit content. Reddit further seeks punitive damages, arguing that Anthropic’s conduct was willful, malicious, and undertaken with conscious disregard for Reddit’s contractual obligations to its users and their privacy rights.

The Case is No. CGC-25-625892.

Attorneys: John B. Quinn (Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, LLP) for Reddit, Inc.

Companies: Reddit, Inc.; Anthropic, PBC

News: AINews TechnologyInternet GCNNews