Perplexity AI has been accused in the United States of embedding tracking software that transmits user conversations to Meta and Google.

Perplexity AI Inc. has been accused in a lawsuit of covertly sharing its users’ personal information with Meta and Google, owned by Alphabet Inc., allegedly violating California privacy laws.

According to a proposed class-action complaint filed on Tuesday in the federal court in San Francisco, trackers are downloaded onto users’ devices as soon as they log into Perplexity’s homepage, enabling Meta and Google full access to conversations between users and Perplexity’s AI Machine search engine.

The complaint alleges that this allows Meta and Google “to exploit this sensitive data for their own benefit, including targeting individuals with advertisements and reselling their sensitive data to additional third parties.”

The complaint further claims that even if users register and use Perplexity’s ‘incognito’ mode, their personal data is still shared.

The lawsuit was filed by a man from Utah, referred to in the complaint as John Doe, who seeks to represent a class of Perplexity users. The complaint states that the man had shared information about his household finances, tax obligations, investment portfolio, and investment strategies with Perplexity’s chatbot.

The complaint also claims that Perplexity embedded “undetectable” tracking software within the code of the search engine, which automatically transmits user conversations to Meta, Google, and other third parties.

The lawsuit names both Meta and Google as defendants, accusing the two companies of violating federal and…