Perplexity Wins Appeal Over Amazon AI Shopping Bot Injunction
Engadget reported that the Ninth Circuit overturned an injunction blocking Perplexity’s Comet AI shopping tool from accessing Amazon, while Amazon’s broader lawsuit over agentic shopping continues in federal court.
Perplexity has won back access for an AI shopping feature while its legal fight with Amazon continues.
Engadget reported that the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned an injunction that had barred the Comet browser's shopping tool from accessing Amazon.
The ruling narrows the immediate question from whether Amazon dislikes autonomous shopping agents to whether the conduct met the legal test for an injunction.
Engadget, citing the appeals opinion, said Amazon's Computer Fraud and Abuse Act claim did not justify the preliminary order because Comet requires a user to direct the browser before it uses Amazon.
User Direction Became The Legal Line
The court's reasoning puts agency at the center of the dispute.
To succeed on the cited computer-access claim, Amazon had to show intentional unauthorized access, acquisition of information from a protected computer and qualifying loss. the panel treated the Comet user, not Perplexity, as the party accessing Amazon's servers.
The opinion also limited Amazon's public-interest argument.
Engadget quoted the court as saying an injunction against conduct that likely does not violate the CFAA or California's related computer-access statute would not serve the public interest.
Amazon is not treating the appeals decision as the end of the case.
In a statement to Engadget, the company said it disagreed with the preliminary-injunction ruling and remained confident while evaluating next steps.
The dispute started after Amazon objected to Perplexity's agentic shopping feature.
Amazon sent a cease-and-desist letter in November 2025 and later alleged that Perplexity revived the feature after an earlier pause by presenting the Comet bot as a normal Chrome browser.
The injunction ruling leaves the main lawsuit alive in San Francisco federal court.
Amazon can still seek rehearing or Supreme Court review, and the trial court record will decide whether user-directed AI shopping agents remain ordinary customer tools or become platform-access systems that retailers can restrict under computer-access law.
