Ticker: Amazon probes AI data-scrape report; OptumRx pays $20M to settle opioid investigation
Amazon is reviewing claims that the artificial intelligence startup Perplexity AI is scraping content — including from prominent news sites — without approval.
Amazon spokesperson Samantha Mayowa confirmed Friday that the tech giant was assessing information it received from the news outlet WIRED, which published an investigation earlier this month that said Perplexity appeared to scrape content from websites that had prohibited access from such practices. Perplexity uses servers by Amazon Web Services, otherwise known as AWS.
Amazon’s “terms of service prohibit abusive and illegal activities and our customers are responsible for complying with those terms,” Mayowa said in a prepared statement. “We routinely receive reports of alleged abuse from a variety of sources and engage our customers to understand those reports.”
Perplexity spokesperson Sara Platnick said Friday that the company had determined that Perplexity-controlled services are not crawling websites in any way that violates AWS terms of service.
OptumRx pays $20M to settle opioid investigation
OptumRx is paying $20 million to settle allegations the company broke federal law by mailing opioids alongside other medications without resolving red flags about whether they were for legitimate medical purposes.
The Drug Enforcement Administration says OptumRx may have “improperly filled certain opioid prescriptions in combination with other drugs” including benzodiazepines and muscle relaxants between 2013 and 2015.
“The trinity style prescription combination helped fuel the start of the opioid addiction crisis and raises a red flag, which this registrant should have recognized and reacted to rather than putting profits before patients’ safety,” DEA Assistant Administrator Thomas Prevoznik said in a news release Thursday.