9th Circuit reverses injunction and holds Perplexity agentic Assistant did not likely violate CFAA. Users of Perplexity access Amazon

The Ninth Circuit reversed a preliminary injunction against Perplexity AI, ruling that its agentic Assistant does not violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act because users, not Perplexity, access Amazon.com. The court held that Amazon was unlikely to succeed on its CFAA claim, as the Assistant relies on user direction and screenshots sent from the user's computer.

The Ninth Circuit issued a major ruling in Amazon.com v. Perplexity AI. The court of appeals reversed the trial court’s grant of preliminary injunction against Perplexity and its AI-web browser Comet that is based on agentic AI called the Assistant: “When a Comet user directs the Assistant to locate an item on Amazon.com, the Assistant takes screenshots of the browser view, sends those screenshots from the user’s computer to Perplexity’s servers, and receives instructions from Perplexity’s servers on how to navigate Amazon.com. In other words, the Assistant cannot operate wholly independently; it relies on direction from the user and instructions from Perplexity’s servers.” The Ninth Circuit found Perplexity’s Assistant does not “access” Amazon’s servers; instead, the user who uses the Assistant is the one who does. Therefore, Amazon was unlikely to succeed on its Computer Fraud and Abuse Act claim against Perplexity: Court staff summary: DOWNLOAD: