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[SITUATION] · [ACTIVE] · [TECHNOLOGY]

2 clusters · 14 sources · 6 days · First seen · Last updated

Amazon and Perplexity AI legal dispute

Overview

The legal dispute between Amazon and Perplexity AI concerns whether Perplexity’s Comet AI shopping assistant violates anti-hacking laws when accessing Amazon’s platform on behalf of users. The conflict originated in November 2025, when Amazon sued Perplexity alleging covert access to customer accounts via the Comet browser. A federal judge in California had previously issued a temporary injunction in March 2026 to bar the tool’s access.

In August 2026, the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals vacated the preliminary injunction. The court ruled that under the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and California’s CDAFA, the users—rather than Perplexity—are the parties accessing the store when they authorize an AI agent to perform tasks.

The ruling, which has been sent back to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, carries significant implications for the legal authority of autonomous AI agents. It also highlights emerging complexities in eDiscovery and information governance regarding the ownership of session histories and action traces generated by AI agents.

Entities

Perplexity · Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals · Computer Fraud and Abuse Act · 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals · Amazon.com Inc.

Timeline

  1. 5 days ago

    [TECHNOLOGY] 2 sources
    Ninth Circuit vacates Amazon injunction in Perplexity AI agent case

    The Ninth Circuit vacated an injunction against Perplexity, ruling that users authorizing AI agents to shop on Amazon are the parties accessing the platform under anti-hacking laws.

  2. 10 days ago

    [TECHNOLOGY] 12 sources
    US Appeals Court Lifts Amazon Ban on Perplexity AI Shopping Assistant

    The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals lifted a ban on Perplexity's AI shopping assistant on Amazon, ruling that users—not the AI—made the access, a landmark decision for agentic AI tools.

Sources

747lives.org · ca.sports.yahoo.com · china.timesofnews.com · cointribune.com · compartir-tecnologias.es · complexdiscovery.com · decrypt.co · etailment.de · ithome.com · paparazzi.com.ar · securities.io · sydneyforeveryone.com.au · techcentral.ie · tecnoandroid.it