The Federal Trade Commission is investigating the artificial intelligence licensing agreements of Reddit, the company in paperwork filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The company, which is in the middle of its Initial Public Offering, said the regulator notified Reddit officials that it “intended to request information and documents” about the company's ai deals.
It's unclear why the FTC is investigating Reddit's relatively new licensing business, but it appears to be in the early stages of its investigation. “On March 14, 2024, we received a letter from the FTC informing us that FTC staff is conducting a non-public investigation focused on our sale, licensing, or sharing of user-generated content with third parties to train computer models. ai.” Reddit wrote in a document. “Given the novel nature of these technologies and commercial agreements, we are not surprised that the FTC has expressed interest in this area. “We do not believe we have engaged in any unfair or deceptive business practices.”
Reddit's deals to license its catalog of user-generated content are a key part of the company's strategy to increase its revenue as it prepares to do so. The day the company filed to go public, it announced that it had reached an agreement with Google, which will use Reddit data to train its artificial intelligence models. That deal reportedly paid off. The company said it was in the early stages of “exploring” such deals.
According ai-license-user-data” rel=”nofollow noopener” target=”_blank” data-ylk=”slk:to Axios;elm:context_link;elmt:doNotAffiliate;cpos:4;pos:1;itc:0;sec:content-canvas”>, other companies have received similar letters from the FTC. The regulator has previously shown interest in the current wave of generative ai startups and their relationships with big tech companies. The FTC is currently questioning Microsoft, Alphabet, and Amazon over their investments in prominent ai startups.