Ninth Circuit lifts Amazon injunction blocking Perplexity Comet shopping agent

A U.S. appeals court has overturned an injunction that barred Perplexity's Comet shopping agent from Amazon, The Next Web reported. The Ninth Circuit found Amazon's core legal claim did not hold: because Comet acts only when a user directs it, the court treated the user, not Perplexity, as the party accessing Amazon's servers. Comet is built into Perplexity's AI browser and can navigate Amazon and complete a purchase when pointed at a product. Amazon argued the agent was unauthorized access, said Perplexity had disguised Comet as a normal Chrome browser to avoid detection, and cited a 2024 agreement in which Perplexity had agreed to pause agentic shopping. Perplexity argued users should be free to bring software of their choice to sites they already may visit. The dispute turned on the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. The court held that a tool doing a user's bidding does not fit the statute's definition of unauthorized access. The Next Web said the reasoning weakens a tool platforms use to keep third-party agents out. Amazon has been building its own agentic shopping layer, including Alexa in the search bar, and retail media ads are a fast-growing profit line threatened if agents skip sponsored placements. Amazon said it remains confident and is weighing options such as a rehearing or Supreme Court review, while the underlying lawsuit continues in San Francisco.