A federal appeals court has temporarily put on hold a California judge’s order that would have blocked Perplexity AI from using an AI-powered shopping agent on Amazon, as the case moves forward in a dispute over who controls automated activity inside customer accounts.

The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday granted Perplexity an administrative stay, pausing the injunction while the court considers the company’s request for a longer pause during its appeal. The lower-court order had been set to take effect within days.

Amazon sued Perplexity in November, alleging the startup’s Comet browser and associated AI agent accessed password-protected portions of Amazon customer accounts without Amazon’s authorization, even when users allowed the tool to act for them. Amazon also accused Perplexity of disguising automated activity as human browsing and of ignoring repeated demands to stop.

U.S. District Judge Maxine Chesney in San Francisco granted Amazon’s request for a preliminary injunction on March 9. She wrote that Amazon was likely to succeed on claims under the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and California’s Comprehensive Computer Data Access and Fraud Act. Chesney said Amazon had provided strong evidence that Perplexity accessed accounts “with the Amazon user’s permission but without authorization by Amazon.”

Chesney’s order required Perplexity to prohibit Comet from accessing or attempting to access Amazon user accounts, and to delete Amazon accounts and customer data it collected. Chesney also cited Amazon’s evidence of response costs, including employee time spent developing tools to block Comet and detect future access, writing that the company incurred more than the threshold amount often used to support computer-fraud claims.

Perplexity argues the activity is lawful because users authorized the AI agent to make purchases and navigate the site on their behalf. In seeking a pause, the company said blocking its product from one of the internet’s largest shopping sites would cause “devastating harm” to the business and to consumers.

A Perplexity spokesperson told CyberScoop Tuesday the company would continue to fight for “people’s right to choose their own AI.” Amazon declined to comment. 

The case underscores issues with “agentic” AI tools that move from answering questions to initiating transactions. Courts are being asked to weigh user permission against platform authorization, and to decide whether automated representatives must follow platform rules designed to limit undisclosed bots in sensitive account areas.

The post Appeals court temporarily pauses order blocking Perplexity’s AI shopping agent on Amazon appeared first on CyberScoop.

A federal judge has blocked Perplexity, makers of the Comet AI browser, from accessing user Amazon accounts and making purchases on their behalf.

In an March 9 order, Judge Maxine Chesney of the Northern District Court of California said the temporary injunction reflects the likelihood that Amazon “will succeed on the merits” of its claim that Perplexity’s AI agents violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and the Comprehensive Computer Data Access and Fraud Act.

The court held that Amazon “has provided strong evidence that Perplexity, through its Comet browser, accesses with the Amazon user’s permission but without authorization by Amazon, the user’s password-protected account.”

Per the ruling, Perplexity must prohibit Comet from accessing, attempting to access, assisting, instructing or providing the means for others to access Amazon user accounts. Perplexity must also delete all Amazon account and customer data it collected along the way.

Perplexity told the court that the purchases were legitimate and legal because their users had authorized their AI agent to make the purchases on their behalf. But Amazon has explicitly denied them such permission, saying the agents make mistakes, interfere with Amazon’s own algorithm and place their users at an elevated cybersecurity risk.

Additionally, Chesney wrote that Amazon has incurred “significantly more” than $5,000 needed to qualify as computer fraud, including the cost of time spent by Amazon employees to develop new web tools to block Comet’s access to private customer accounts and detect future unauthorized access by the browser.

According to Amazon, they have asked Perplexity officials on five separate occasions to cease covertly accessing Amazon’s store with its agents. In a cease-and-desist letter sent to Perplexity Oct. 31, 2025, attorney Moez Kaba of law firm Hueston Hennigan wrote to Perplexity, alleging the automated purchases degrade the online shopping experience for Amazon customers.

Amazon requires AI agents to digitally identify themselves when using the e-commerce platform. But they alleged Perplexity executives “refused to operate transparently and have instead taken affirmative steps to conceal its agentic activities in the Amazon Store,” including configuring their software to covertly pose as human traffic.

“Such transparency is critical because it protects a service provider’s right to monitor AI agents and restrict conduct that degrades the customer shopping experience, erodes customer trust, and creates security risks for our customers’ private data,” wrote Kaba.

Additionally, such agents could pose a further risk to Amazon through cybersecurity vulnerabilities exploited by cybercriminals to hijack AI browsers like Comet.

The lack of response from Perplexity executives to earlier entreaties from Amazon may have played a role in the court’s injunction, with Chesney noting that Amazon was likely to suffer irreparable harm without court intervention because “Perplexity has made clear that, in the absence of the relief requested, it will continue to engage in the above-referenced challenged conduct.”

The case could have broader implications for the way commercial AI agent tools are designed and how far they can legally act on a person’s behalf. Notably, while Amazon opposes Comet’s AI-directed purchases, Perplexity claims that its users have given them permission to make purchases on their behalf.

Perplexity argued a court order halting their AI’s activities would go against the public interest, depriving them of consumer choice and innovation. Chesney concluded the opposite, endorsing Amazon’s argument that the public has a greater interest in protecting their computers from unauthorized access.

Perplexity did not respond to a request for comment on the ruling at press time.

You can read the injunction below.

The post Federal judge blocks Perplexity’s AI browser from making Amazon purchases appeared first on CyberScoop.

ISSUE 22.50 • 2025-12-15 LEGAL BRIEF By Max Stul Oppenheimer, Esq. We began this exercise with a simple question that, in generic form, is on everyone’s mind as we witness the dramatic gains in artificial intelligence: “Do we really still need (blank), or can artificial intelligence take its place?” In this case, we filled in […]

In my writings here, I have continuously praised Perplexity, saying that I would pay for an annual Pro plan as soon as my year-long free trial expired. I didn’t do that. Why? Because I think Copilot is getting better at Web searches. I came to that conclusion because six weeks before my Perplexity plan expired, […]

LEGAL BRIEF By Max Stul Oppenheimer, Esq. Do we really still need lawyers, or can artificial intelligence take their place? That’s the question we posed in my previous column, First, we fire all our lawyers … (AskWoody, 2025-09-15). We chose two popular (and free) bots, consistent with the premise that this was to avoid paying […]