Perplexity Beats Amazon's Injunction: Comet Browser Cleared To Shop Till It Drops 🛒

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday that Amazon is unlikely to succeed on its claim that Perplexity violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, overturning a March preliminary injunction that had temporarily blocked Perplexity's Comet browser from making purchases on Amazon. The ruling hands the AI startup an early victory in a closely watched case over how autonomous AI agents interact with online platforms, though the underlying lawsuit remains ongoing.

Writing for the panel, the court stated the legal threshold plainly: "To succeed on a claim under the CFAA, a plaintiff must show that the defendant intentionally accessed a computer, without authorization or exceeding authorized access, thereby obtained information from any protected computer, and that there was loss to one or more persons during any one-year period aggregating at least $5,000 in value." Applying that standard, the court reasoned that Amazon's users, not Perplexity, accessed the platform through Comet, an agentic AI browser capable of browsing websites, logging into accounts, and completing purchases on a user's behalf.

The dispute began in November, when Amazon sent Perplexity a cease-and-desist letter before filing suit. Amazon alleged that Comet's automated traffic disguised itself as a standard web browser, violated Amazon's terms of service, and accessed customer accounts without authorization. Perplexity countered that Comet operated only with users' permission using credentials stored on their own devices and accused Amazon of attempting to block consumer choice in AI assistants.

In March, a federal judge had granted Amazon a preliminary injunction, finding the company had presented strong evidence that Perplexity likely violated federal and California computer fraud laws by accessing password-protected Amazon accounts without Amazon's permission. That order had barred Comet from shopping on Amazon while the litigation continued. With Tuesday's appellate ruling, the injunction is lifted, and Perplexity's agentic browser can resume transactional activity on the platform pending further proceedings.

The decision offers an early indication of how courts may weigh claims against AI agents that act on behalf of users, an area where existing computer-fraud statutes were drafted long before agentic browsing became commercially viable.