Brave faces lawsuit over selling search index to AI companies
A search engine is indexing your site and selling access to AI makers. Here's what you can actually do about it.
In early November, the New York Times sued Brave, which operates both a web browser and a search engine, claiming the company indexed more than 30 billion webpages and sold access to that content to AI companies like Perplexity, Mistral, and Cohere. Brave had not filed a response when this was written. The core claim matters to you: if you run a website, there's a good chance it's in that index, and AI makers may be paying Brave to search it.
Key facts
- On November 2, the New York Times filed suit against Brave, alleging the company indexed billions of webpages and sold access through its Brave Search API without notifying site owners or providing a way to block the crawler.
- Brave's search index holds over 30 billion pages and Brave lists Cohere, Mistral, Perplexity, and You.com as API customers on its website.
- Brave's crawler does not identify itself by name, making it impossible to block separately from Google's crawler using standard website controls.
- The same day the Times sued, the Daily News, Chicago Tribune, and Orlando Sentinel filed a separate lawsuit against Brave on similar grounds.
Can you keep Brave out of your website?
Not without also keeping Google out. Brave's crawler doesn't advertise its name, so you can't block it individually using robots.txt, the standard file websites use to control which search engines can access their pages. Brave's help page states that its crawler obeys the same permissions that apply to Google's crawler. If you allow Google in, Brave comes in too. The only way to remove your pages from Brave's index is to add a noindex tag, which also removes them from Google. For most small businesses, that's not a trade-off worth making.
What's actually being sold to the AI companies?
Not just search results. The lawsuit quotes Brave describing what it calls "LLM Context," which hands AI companies your page content already cut into chunks, formatted and ready to use. An AI assistant can then write an answer using your information without ever sending a visitor back to your website. This is different from a traditional search engine, where someone searches, finds your page, clicks it, and lands on your site. With Brave's API, the AI company gets your content but controls whether anyone ever visits you.
Should you check if you're in Brave's index?
Yes, and it takes 30 seconds. Go to search.brave.com, type "site:" followed by your domain name, and see what pages show up. Everything you see is in the index Brave is selling. What you find there is a stored copy, not a live version of your site, so it may be outdated. But it's what AI companies are paying to access.
What happens next?
The lawsuits will take time. A court ruling in the Times case won't automatically cover other websites, but it will set a precedent about whether Brave's practices are legal. Until then, Brave continues operating as it does now. My take: this is worth watching. For now, understand that AI assistants may be quoting your content without sending visitors your way, and there's no practical way to stop it without also blocking Google.
Sources
- Brave Sells Its Search Index To AI, And Your Website Is Probably In It via @sejournal, @slobodanmanic - Search Engine Journal, November 6, 2026
They did the reporting. The writing and the opinions here are ours.
Questions people ask about this
Is my website in Brave Search's index?
You can check by going to search.brave.com and searching for site:yourdomain.com. Everything that appears is in the index Brave sells to AI companies. Brave's index contains over 30 billion pages total.
Can I block Brave's crawler from my website?
Not separately from Google. Brave's crawler doesn't identify itself by name, so you can't block it using robots.txt. You can only remove your pages using a noindex tag, which also removes them from Google Search.
What are AI companies doing with my website content?
They're using it to answer user questions. Brave sells them your page content pre-formatted and cut into chunks. An AI assistant can write an answer using your information, but it's up to the AI company whether that answer includes a link back to your site.
Will this lawsuit change anything for my business?
The case is still early and Brave had not filed a response when this was written. A ruling could eventually change how search engines handle AI access, but that will take months or longer.
What should I do about this right now?
Check if you're in Brave's index using the site search. Beyond that, you cannot block Brave without also blocking Google, which most businesses depend on for traffic.
This piece is about Brave Sells Its Search Index To AI, And Your Website Is Probably In It via @sejournal, @slobodanmanic, published by Search Engine Journal. Go read the original; the opinions here are ours and the reporting is theirs.
