A Rs 499 Mistake? Perplexity.in Redirects You To Google Gemini

Perplexity ranks among one of the most popular AI chatbots in India. But interestingly, when you type in Perplexity.in into the URL tab, it redirects users directly to Google's Gemini - a direct rival of Perplexity.

That means Perplexity, despite being one of the biggest AI service providers in the country, does not own an Indian domain for their service - something that is surely benefiting Google.

The Perplexity.in website redirecting to Gemini has led to insinuations that Google may have capitalised on Perplexity simply forgetting to buy the India domain. However, neither of these could be true.

Perplexity, as a brand, usually avoids buying country specific domain and largely operate under Perplexity.ai and Perplexity.com domains.

That is why the AI startup does not own domains in the United Kingdom (.uk), Germany (.de) or .us (United States), despite hailing from San Francisco. By not owning a domain in India, Perplexity could simply be following company principles.

On the other hand, there is no evidence that Google has bought the Perplexity.in domain, as virtually anyone can buy the domain for as low as Rs 499 and make it redirect to Gemini or any other website. These users are called cybersquatters.

Nevertheless, this comes at a time when Perplexity has attempted to scale up their operations in India, notably partnering with Airtel to offer Perplexity Pro services to Airtel users.

This domain incident also mirrors the JioHotstar saga in India, when an app developer purchased JioHotstar.com well in advance of the merger between Reliance Jio and Disney+ Hotstar.

Reliance, a massive conglomerate, had not secured the domain, leading to a public dispute where the developer demanded funding for his education in exchange for the URL.

It remains to be seen whether Perplexity would look to acquire the India-specific domain in the near future.