Ninth Circuit Lifts Injunction Blocking Perplexity AI Tools on Amazon

An appellate ruling in favor of artificial intelligence assistant developers has cleared Perplexity AI to resume operating its automated shopping tools on Amazon, dealing a setback to e-commerce platforms seeking to restrict agentic web traffic under federal anti-hacking statutes.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday overturned a lower court’s preliminary injunction against Perplexity, determining that the e-commerce titan is unlikely to prevail on claims brought under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA).

At the center of the dispute is Comet, an agentic AI browser developed by Perplexity that performs automated tasks on the web, including navigating online storefronts, signing into user accounts, and completing checkout procedures on behalf of individuals.

Refuting claims that the software improperly breached system defenses, the appellate panel emphasized that authorization originates from the account holders rather than the AI interface itself. The court concluded that Amazon users, using credentials stored locally on their own devices, were the entity reaching the platform.

“To succeed on a claim under the CFAA, a plaintiff must show that the defendant intentionally accessed a computer, without authorization or exceeding authorized access, thereby obtained information from any protected computer, and that there was loss to one or more persons during any one-year period aggregating at least $5,000 in value,” the ruling said.

The ruling vacates a decision handed down in March by a federal judge, who had initially sided with Amazon. That earlier injunction temporarily restricted Comet’s shopping functionality after finding substantial preliminary evidence that Perplexity might have breached both federal anti-hacking laws and California computer fraud statutes by accessing password-gated Amazon user accounts without corporate authorization.

The legal clash began in November when Amazon issued a cease-and-desist demand prior to filing formal litigation. Amazon alleged that Perplexity’s browser disguised automated bot requests as ordinary browser traffic, bypassed terms of service protections, and systematically interacted with customer profiles without explicit permission from the platform operator.

In response, Perplexity countered that Comet functions purely as an authorized digital delegate acting at the direct request of users, relying on credentials under individual consumer control. The startup argued that Amazon’s legal stance was an attempt to stifle competition and limit consumer autonomy over AI-driven shopping tools.

While the underlying lawsuit remains active in federal district court, the Ninth Circuit’s determination provides early judicial guidance on how existing cybersecurity statutes apply to autonomous AI agents operating with user consent across digital marketplaces.