By Jose Antonio Lanz
Publication Date: 2026-03-10 22:39:00
In brief
- A Judge has blocked Perplexity’s AI shopping agent from Amazon.
- The case is testing whether AI agents inherit user permissions.
- Once resolved, the ruling could set precedent for platform control over AI commerce.
A federal judge in San Francisco handed Amazon a win this week against Perplexity AI, blocking the startup’s Comet browser from making purchases on Amazon on behalf of users—at least for now.
The ruling, issued Monday by U.S. District Judge Maxine Chesney, is a preliminary injunction, not a final verdict.
The broader legal battle over whether AI agents can shop on third-party platforms without the platforms’ consent remains an open question.
The case began in November 2025 when Amazon filed suit against Perplexity under the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and a California computer fraud statute, accusing the startup of disguising Comet’s automated sessions as regular Google Chrome browser traffic.
Amazon said it had warned Perplexity to stop at least five times starting in November 2024.
When Amazon deployed a technical block in August 2025, Perplexity pushed a software update within 24 hours to get around it. The judge cited that move in her ruling.
Judge Chesney found that Amazon provided “essentially undisputed evidence” that Perplexity accessed password-protected Prime accounts with users’ permission but without Amazon’s authorization.
The distinction is the crux of the dispute. Perplexity argued that Comet merely automates what users direct…
