By Greg Otto
Publication Date: 2026-03-10 18:57:00
A federal judge has blocked Perplexity, makers of the Comet AI browser, from accessing user Amazon accounts and making purchases on their behalf.
In an March 9 order, Judge Maxine Chesney of the Northern District Court of California said the temporary injunction reflects the likelihood that Amazon “will succeed on the merits” of its claim that Perplexity’s AI agents violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and the Comprehensive Computer Data Access and Fraud Act.
The court held that Amazon “has provided strong evidence that Perplexity, through its Comet browser, accesses with the Amazon user’s permission but without authorization by Amazon, the user’s password-protected account.”
Per the ruling, Perplexity must prohibit Comet from accessing, attempting to access, assisting, instructing or providing the means for others to access Amazon user accounts. Perplexity must also delete all Amazon account and customer data it collected along the way.
Perplexity told the court that the purchases were legitimate and legal because their users had authorized their AI agent to make the purchases on their behalf. But Amazon has explicitly denied them such permission, saying the agents make mistakes, interfere with Amazon’s own algorithm and place their users at an elevated cybersecurity risk.
Additionally, Chesney wrote that Amazon has incurred “significantly more” than $5,000 needed to qualify as computer fraud, including the cost of time…
