{"slug": "perplexity-wins-appeal-to-keep-its-comet-browser-shopping-on-amazon", "title": "Perplexity wins appeal to keep its Comet browser shopping on Amazon", "summary": "The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on August 4 vacated a preliminary injunction that had restricted Perplexity's Comet browser from operating inside password-protected Amazon accounts, ruling that Amazon was unlikely to prove Perplexity had 'accessed' its computers under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act because the user was the legal actor entering Amazon's systems. The decision, reported by Reuters, gives Perplexity co-founder and CEO Aravind Srinivas a path to keep Comet shopping on Amazon, though it does not settle the lawsuit or grant AI agents a general right to enter any website.", "body_md": "[Aravind Srinivas (@AravSrinivas)](https://x.com/AravSrinivas), Perplexity's co-founder and chief executive, won a ruling Tuesday that gives his browser a path to keep shopping on [Amazon](https://amazon.com/) for users and places an early legal boundary around how online platforms can use anti-hacking law against AI agents.\n\nThe [Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals](https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca9/26-1444/26-1444-2026-08-04.html) vacated a preliminary injunction that had restricted Perplexity's [Comet browser](https://www.perplexity.ai/grow/comet) from operating inside password-protected Amazon accounts. The three-judge panel held that Amazon was unlikely to prove Perplexity had \"accessed\" its computers under the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, or CFAA, because the user was the legal actor entering Amazon's systems. Comet was the user's tool, even though it received navigation instructions from Perplexity's servers. [Reuters reported the decision](https://www.reuters.com/business/retail-consumer/amazon-loses-us-court-ban-perplexitys-ai-shopping-tools-2026-08-04/) on August 4th. ([law.justia.com](https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca9/26-1444/26-1444-2026-08-04.html))\n\nThat distinction goes directly to Srinivas's effort to turn Perplexity from a source-citing search engine into a software layer that can act across the web. Srinivas, an IIT Madras graduate who earned a computer science doctorate at UC Berkeley and later worked as an OpenAI research scientist, co-founded Perplexity in August 2022 after watching AI move from laboratory research into products used by consumers. His original thesis centered on answering questions with citations. Comet extends that thesis from finding information to taking action. ([acr.iitm.ac.in](https://acr.iitm.ac.in/latestyaas/dr-aravind-srinivas/))\n\nThe ruling is a meaningful win for that expansion, though it does not settle the lawsuit or grant AI agents a general right to enter any website. The published opinion rests on Comet's current architecture, the claims Amazon chose to press at the preliminary-injunction stage and a criminal statute written decades before autonomous browser software existed.\n\n### The architecture decided the appeal\n\nThe court's analysis turned on where the browsing happened and which machine communicated with Amazon.\n\nComet is a Chromium-based browser that runs on the user's computer. When a user activates its Assistant to find or buy an item, the browser requests Amazon pages and displays them locally. The Assistant can analyze the page, send screenshots and relevant instructions to Perplexity's servers, and receive directions for the next action. Perplexity's servers do not directly connect to Amazon's servers under the technical record considered by the court. ([law.justia.com](https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca9/26-1444/26-1444-2026-08-04.html))\n\nAmazon argued that the remote instructions and Comet's ability to navigate without continuous clicking made the access attributable to Perplexity. Perplexity compared the Assistant to browser software that fills an address or payment field for a user. The Ninth Circuit adopted the user-centered account: the customer entered Amazon's computers with Comet's assistance, while Perplexity received screenshots after Amazon had sent the information to the user's device. ([law.justia.com](https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca9/26-1444/26-1444-2026-08-04.html))\n\nThe panel also treated the Assistant as software rather than a legal person capable of carrying the statute's required intent. It declined to stretch a law aimed at computer intrusion into a rule covering a user's choice to delegate browsing actions to a tool. That reading was reinforced by the rule of lenity, which requires courts to construe genuine ambiguity in a criminal statute against liability. The CFAA supplies civil remedies, but the same statutory language also defines criminal conduct. ([law.justia.com](https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca9/26-1444/26-1444-2026-08-04.html))\n\nThe limit matters. The panel expressly left open whether a different system could give its developer enough control to count as the party accessing a website. A cloud agent that connects directly to a retailer, independently selects targets or operates with less user direction could produce a different result. The opinion also leaves tort, contract, privacy and other legal theories outside its holding.\n\nFor agent developers, software design has become part of legal strategy. Keeping browser execution on a user's device, requiring a user instruction and avoiding direct server-to-server entry all supported Perplexity's position. Future agents built around centralized credentials or remote browser sessions may struggle to claim the same separation between developer and user.\n\n### Amazon is fighting for the shopping interface\n\nAmazon framed the dispute around security, transparency and control over private customer accounts. In its [November 4th complaint](https://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/amazon-vs-perplexity-complaint.pdf), Amazon alleged that Comet identified itself with the same user-agent string as Google Chrome, preventing Amazon from readily distinguishing agent activity from ordinary human browsing. Amazon also alleged that Perplexity modified Comet within 24 hours after Amazon introduced a technical barrier designed to identify and block it. Those remain Amazon's allegations, and the appeals court noted that the parties dispute whether Perplexity knowingly changed the identifier to evade detection. ([courthousenews.com](https://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/amazon-vs-perplexity-complaint.pdf))\n\nAmazon said Comet's operation inside logged-in accounts could expose shopping histories, billing information and other account data, while degrading purchases if the agent selected an inferior price, product or delivery option. The appellate panel found the evidence supporting those threatened harms too weak for an injunction. It said Amazon's cybersecurity evidence was limited, including an expert account that did not identify a demonstrated attack on Amazon.com, and found the alleged damage to customer goodwill too abstract on the record before it. ([law.justia.com](https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca9/26-1444/26-1444-2026-08-04.html))\n\nThe commercial stakes extend beyond account security. Amazon wants its own software to mediate product discovery, recommendations and checkout. In May, Amazon combined Rufus and Alexa+ into [Alexa for Shopping](https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/retail/alexa-for-shopping-ai-assistant), which can compare products, manage carts, monitor prices, automate purchases and use a customer's Amazon history to personalize recommendations. Amazon says Rufus served more than 300 million customers in 2025. Amazon separately claims its shopping assistant generated nearly $12 billion of incremental sales that year, a company-supplied figure that has not been independently audited in the materials reviewed. ([aboutamazon.com](https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/retail/alexa-for-shopping-ai-assistant?ascsubtag=bw-aebd744e-b10e%5B%5B%5Be46ad6%5B))\n\nComet competes for control of the same moment: which products a user sees, how options are ranked, whether sponsored placements enter the decision and which interface owns the relationship after a purchase. Perplexity made that conflict explicit after Amazon sued in November, arguing that its agents lack \"eyeballs\" for the advertising Amazon presents to shoppers. Perplexity spokesperson Jesse Dwyer said Tuesday that Perplexity would continue fighting for users to choose their preferred AI. ([aboutamazon.com](https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/retail/alexa-for-shopping-ai-assistant?ascsubtag=bw-aebd744e-b10e%5B%5B%5Be46ad6%5B))\n\nAmazon therefore has two roles in this fight. It owns a marketplace with account-security obligations and detailed rules for software access. It also builds a rival shopping agent whose value rises when customers remain inside Amazon's interface. The Ninth Circuit did not decide which motive carried greater weight. It ruled that the CFAA was the wrong shortcut for resolving that competition on the current record.\n\n### The ruling leaves platforms with contracts and code\n\nThe decision does not prevent Amazon from writing terms that restrict agents. A footnote in the opinion says Amazon can regulate access through private terms of service for its users. The court held only that Amazon was unlikely to convert the alleged violation into liability under the CFAA and California's computer-access statute on the facts presented. ([law.justia.com](https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca9/26-1444/26-1444-2026-08-04.html))\n\nThat leaves platforms with several practical tools. They can require agent identification, rate-limit automated sessions, demand transaction-level confirmation, revoke credentials, challenge suspicious activity and offer approved application programming interfaces. Amazon can also continue trying to detect and block Comet, although doing so becomes harder when an agent operates inside a conventional browser session on a customer's device.\n\nAgent makers face the opposite pressure. Identifying an agent may make a service easier to block. Concealing it can create contract, consumer-protection and security exposure even where the CFAA does not apply. The Ninth Circuit's decision reduces one category of legal risk without resolving that operational conflict.\n\nThe court's emphasis on consumer choice may influence future preliminary-injunction fights. The panel found that blocking conduct unlikely to violate the cited statutes would burden Perplexity, restrict consumer choice and limit development of a young technology. Civil-liberties groups had warned that Amazon's theory could also reach browser extensions and automated tools used by journalists and researchers with the consent of account holders. ([law.justia.com](https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca9/26-1444/26-1444-2026-08-04.html))\n\nStill, the opinion repeatedly narrows its reach. The judges said they were applying the CFAA to the version of agentic AI described in this record. As agents gain greater autonomy, retain credentials, make discretionary decisions and transact through remote infrastructure, courts may assign their actions differently.\n\n### Amazon's case returns without its injunction\n\nAmazon sued in November 2025 under the CFAA and California's Comprehensive Computer Data Access and Fraud Act. U.S. District Judge Maxine Chesney granted preliminary relief on March 9th, ordering Perplexity to stop using AI agents to access protected Amazon systems and to destroy Amazon customer data obtained through that activity. The Ninth Circuit stayed that order during the appeal before vacating it on August 4th. ([cases.justia.com](https://cases.justia.com/federal/district-courts/california/candce/3%3A2025cv09514/459191/81/0.pdf))\n\nThe case now returns to the Northern District of California. Amazon's complaint included a separate CFAA theory alleging access with intent to defraud under Section 1030(a)(4); the district court's short injunction order did not address that provision, and Amazon did not pursue it in this appeal. The published ruling nevertheless weakens the access theory at the center of both statutes because the appellate panel concluded that the user, rather than Perplexity, entered Amazon's systems. ([courthousenews.com](https://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/amazon-vs-perplexity-complaint.pdf))\n\nSrinivas has gained room to keep building Comet as a user-directed layer over websites that would prefer to control their own automated interfaces. Amazon retains its contracts, security controls and ability to litigate on remand. The next phase will test whether a marketplace can prove a legally recognized injury from an agent that sits between Amazon and a customer who invited it there.", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/perplexity-wins-appeal-to-keep-its-comet-browser-shopping-on-amazon", "canonical_source": "https://runtimewire.com/article/perplexity-wins-appeal-to-keep-its-comet-browser-shopping-on-amazon", "published_at": "2026-08-04 20:07:17+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-08-04 20:27:27.949831+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["ai-agents", "ai-policy", "ai-products"], "entities": ["Perplexity", "Aravind Srinivas", "Amazon", "Comet browser", "Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals", "Computer Fraud and Abuse Act", "Reuters"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/perplexity-wins-appeal-to-keep-its-comet-browser-shopping-on-amazon", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/perplexity-wins-appeal-to-keep-its-comet-browser-shopping-on-amazon.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/perplexity-wins-appeal-to-keep-its-comet-browser-shopping-on-amazon.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/perplexity-wins-appeal-to-keep-its-comet-browser-shopping-on-amazon.jsonld"}}