When Can Amazon Block an Agentic AI Service?–Amazon vs. Perplexity

On March 9, 2026, a federal judge granted Amazon a preliminary injunction against Perplexity AI, ruling that Amazon was likely to succeed on claims that Perplexity's Comet shopping agent violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act by continuing to access Amazon's systems after authorization was revoked. The injunction blocks Perplexity's agentic AI tool from shopping on Amazon through user accounts, marking a significant legal precedent for how courts treat AI agents that act as delegated representatives for users. The ruling raises existential questions for e-commerce platforms as agentic AI threatens to bypass traditional revenue streams like product placement and advertising.