Perplexity is using stealth, undeclared crawlers to evade no-crawl directives

Re:Perplexity is using stealth, undeclared crawlers to evade... by ToucanLoucan on Monday August 04, 2025 @11:41AM (#44787378)

Just the Silicon Valley ethos extended to it's logical conclusions. These companies take advantage of public space, utilities and goodwill at industrial scale to "move fast and break things" and then everyone else has to deal with the ensuing consequences. Like how cities are awash in those fucking electric scooters now.

Mind you I'm not saying electric scooters are a bad idea, I have one and I quite enjoy it. I'm saying we didn't need five fucking startups all competing to provide them at the lowest cost possible just for 2/3s of them to end up in fucking landfills when the VC funding ran out.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Perplexity is using stealth, undeclared crawlers to evade... by SoftTalker on Monday August 04, 2025 @12:18PM (#44787937)

My city impounded them and made them pay a fee to get them back. Now they have to pay a fee every year to be able to operate. Win/win.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Perplexity is using stealth, undeclared crawlers to evade... by account42 on Tuesday August 05, 2025 @08:53AM (#44797413)

Do those fees actually improve anything for the citizens who now have to deal with vehicles abandoned on sidewalks everywhere or does it just buy the major a nicer yacht?

[ Parent | on HN ]