By Diego Almada Lopez
Publication Date: 2026-11-03 13:34:00
A Ninth Circuit ruling says the user, not the bot, is the one accessing Amazon, but the fight over Perplexity’s Comet browser is far from finished
Asking an AI assistant to order you a coffee machine sounds harmless. On Amazon, it turned into one of the first real courtroom tests of what happens when software shops on your behalf.
The software is Comet, a browser built by Perplexity AI. Its built-in Assistant can wander through Amazon’s store and complete a purchase for whoever is using it. Amazon says that behavior crosses a legal line. Perplexity has so far won the most important round of the argument, although the case is still very much alive.
How the fight unfolded
Amazon filed suit in November 2025. According to the case history, it did so after Perplexity did not respond to cease-and-desist letters.
The retailer’s core claim is that Comet’s agent got into protected customer accounts without permission. Amazon also alleges the agent disguised itself as an ordinary Chrome browser, making automated activity look like a human clicking around.
The legal hooks are two anti-hacking statutes. One is the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, known as the CFAA. The other is California’s Comprehensive Computer Data Access and Fraud Act, or CDAFA.
Early on, that theory worked. A federal judge in San Francisco granted Amazon a preliminary injunction on March 9-10, 2026, blocking the agent based on the claims of unauthorized account access.
