A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has lifted the injunction that had prevented Perplexity’s Comet AI browser from completing purchases on Amazon. The court reasoned that Comet acts only at a user's direction, so the party accessing Amazon’s servers is the user, not Perplexity. On that basis, the panel concluded that Amazon’s claim of “unauthorized access” under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) did not stand.
What happened in the case
- The dispute concerned a temporary court order that blocked Comet from performing shopping transactions on Amazon’s site.
- The Ninth Circuit vacated that order, finding that requests sent to Amazon when Comet operates at a user’s command should be treated as originating from the user rather than Perplexity itself.
- Because of that attribution, the panel determined Amazon’s CFAA-based theory of unauthorized access was insufficient at this stage.
Legal and industry significance
The decision is not final: Amazon can seek a rehearing or pursue further appeals, and the underlying litigation on other substantive issues remains pending. Nevertheless, the panel’s ruling establishes an important early precedent concerning so-called agent-like AI tools and their interactions with online platforms.
For years, platform operators have frequently relied on anti-hacking statutes such as the CFAA to block automated tools and bots. The Ninth Circuit’s reasoning weakens that line of defense where the automated actor is best understood as an agent of the user rather than an independent intruder. In practical terms, platforms’ ability to invoke “unauthorized access” claims may be limited when a third-party AI is merely carrying out a user’s directives.
Why this matters
The ruling signals that legal barriers platforms have used to police automated access may not apply as readily when the software is acting on behalf of an identifiable user. One of Amazon’s concerns in the litigation was not only the presence of rogue scrapers, but the possibility that third-party AI intermediaries could sit between the service and its customers and change the dynamics of the relationship. If the intermediary is characterized as executing the user’s will, that reduces the force of the “intruder” label that platforms have used to justify blocking such intermediaries.
Next steps
The case will continue: Amazon may seek rehearing or appeal, and further factual and legal issues remain to be resolved in the lower courts. Meanwhile, the Ninth Circuit’s opinion may be cited in other disputes over AI agents and platform access, shaping how courts allocate responsibility when automated tools act at a user’s direction.
Brief takeaway
The Ninth Circuit concluded that an AI agent operating only on a user’s instructions should be treated as the user for purposes of access to a service, undercutting a common platform defense that treats automated intermediaries as unauthorized intruders.
