A preliminary injunction has been granted by a federal judge in San Francisco, blocking Perplexity from utilizing its Comet browser to access protected areas of the Amazon website for shopping purposes. This ruling is a significant development in the emerging sector of agentic commerce, where AI tools assist consumers in purchasing decisions.
Judge Maxine Chesney determined that Amazon is likely to prevail in its claims that Perplexity infringed on the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. The judge noted that while Comet accesses Amazon accounts with user permission, it does so without Amazon's authorization, raising questions about digital access control in the age of AI.
Amazon's lawsuit claims that Perplexity misrepresented its AI agent as a standard Google Chrome session, thus avoiding detection. The company indicated that it had issued multiple warnings to Perplexity and had implemented barriers to limit Comet's access, which Perplexity swiftly bypassed with software updates.
An Amazon spokesperson emphasized the importance of the injunction in ensuring a secure shopping environment for users. Perplexity has yet to publicly respond to the ruling but previously characterized the legal action as an attempt to stifle competition in the AI shopping space.