In a bold move, Reddit CEO Steve Huffman has declared an end to the era of free data scraping on the platform. After securing lucrative deals with Google and OpenAI, Huffman is now calling on Microsoft and other companies to pay up if they want to continue using Reddit's data.
Huffman emphasized that these agreements are crucial for maintaining control over Reddit's data and ensuring it's used responsibly. Without them, Reddit has no say in how its data is displayed or used, leading to a loss of control and potential misuse.
“Without these agreements, we don’t have any say or knowledge of how our data is displayed and what it’s used for, which has put us in a position now of blocking folks who haven’t been willing to come to terms with how we’d like our data to be used or not used,” he told The Verge in an interview.
Microsoft, Anthropic, and Perplexity are amongst the companies that have refused to negotiate, prompting Huffman to describe the situation as "a real pain" to block them. Reddit has been fighting unauthorized web crawlers and updated its robots.txt file in July to block those without agreement.
This move has already had noticeable effects, with Reddit results appearing exclusively in Google search results due to their paid agreement. Meanwhile, Microsoft's Bing search engine has been accused of using Reddit's data without permission, training its AI, and summarizing content without consent.
Huffman criticized Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman's comment that public internet data is "freeware," indicating a disregard for compensating data sources. Reddit's stance is clear: companies benefiting from its data must provide fair compensation.
This development highlights the growing tension between data providers and tech giants over data use and monetization. By enforcing stricter control, Reddit aims to ensure a say in how its information is used and displayed. This move is part of a broader trend where online platforms seek to monetize their data more effectively, recognizing its skyrocketing value in the AI and machine learning era.
The outcome of this standoff between Reddit and Microsoft remains to be seen, but it could have significant implications for future data sharing and monetization. As Huffman stands firm, the tech world watches, wondering who will blink first.
