Thursday Aug 6
GOVERNANCEAmazon

Appeals Court Unblocks Perplexity's Shopping Agent

6AUG
USERS, NOT BOTSVACATEDCOMET

An appeals court killed Amazon's block on Perplexity's Comet agent. Their logic: when your AI shops with your own account, you visit Amazon, not the bot's maker.

Amazon sued under the federal anti-hacking law and got Comet blocked. The Ninth Circuit vacated that order. The panel said Amazon probably cannot prove Perplexity accessed Amazon's servers.

Comet logs into the shopper's own account with saved credentials, then checks out normally. The judges noted there is almost no caselaw on who is responsible for AI agents. Ambiguity went against liability.

This is the first appellate ruling on whether agents may browse on our behalf. Site owners lost their main legal weapon against user-delegated bots. Will be interesting to watch how fast agentic shopping spreads now.

full brief & sources

⚡ Why this matters

  • First appellate precedent on whether AI agents may act on websites for their users. Every agent builder was waiting for this.
  • The CFAA, the federal anti-hacking law, was site owners' main weapon against unwanted bots. This ruling blunts it for user-delegated agents.
  • Agentic shopping and browsing just moved from legal gray zone to defensible.

🔍 What happened

  • On Aug 4-5 the Ninth Circuit vacated Amazon's preliminary injunction against Perplexity's Comet browser and shopping agent.
  • Holding: Amazon is unlikely to prove Perplexity accessed its servers under the CFAA.
  • Reason: users operate Comet. It logs into the user's own Amazon account with stored credentials and buys through normal checkout.
  • The panel applied the rule of lenity, reading the ambiguous statute against liability.
  • The opinion notes there is little to no existing caselaw on ascribing responsibility for AI agents.

💬 Smart takes

  • The Ninth Circuit panel: there is 'little to no existing caselaw directly dealing with how to ascribe responsibility for AI agents.'
  • Search Engine Journal: framed it as the CFAA case that decides whether AI agents can visit your website.
  • The Skeptic: a vacated preliminary injunction is not a merits win. Amazon still has contract and trademark angles, and this binds one circuit.

🧭 Where this goes

  1. LikelyAmazon and other retailers rewrite terms of service to target agents through contract law instead.
  2. LikelyOpenAI, Google, and Anthropic shopping agents expand faster now the hacking-law threat has faded.
  3. PossibleCongress moves to update the 1986 hacking law with explicit AI-agent language.
  4. Possibleanother circuit rules the other way, setting up a Supreme Court fight.
  5. Wild CardAmazon flips and launches paid agent access for outside shopping bots rather than fighting them.

🥄 The Spoon Take

The court just decided who the user is when an AI acts for you, and the answer is you. That one move guts the standard playbook for blocking agents. The open web may become agent-operated by default, with sites competing to serve bots instead of suing them.

🤔 Pushback

This was a preliminary ruling only; Amazon can still win at trial, other circuits may split, and contract claims survive.

·Courthouse News - Ninth Circuit opinion·TechBriefly - Injunction overturned·Search Engine Journal - CFAA agent case·Dataconomy - Court ruling