The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has overturned an injunction that banned Perplexity's AI shopping tool, built into its Comet browser, from accessing Amazon. The August 4, 2026 decision eliminates the preliminary injunction a federal judge granted Amazon in March but does not close the underlying lawsuit, which continues in San Francisco federal court. Engadget

The appellate court concluded that Amazon's claim Perplexity violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) did not hold up to scrutiny. Central to the Ninth Circuit's reasoning was the mechanics of the Comet browser itself: because Comet requires user direction to interact with Amazon, it is the individual Comet user, not Perplexity, who accesses Amazon's computers. The court stated that an injunction against conduct that likely does not violate the CFAA or the California Comprehensive Data Access and Fraud Act (CDAFA) would not serve the public interest. Engadget

The dispute between the two companies became public in November 2025, when Amazon sent Perplexity a cease-and-desist letter demanding it block its AI browser from accessing Amazon's online store. Amazon subsequently filed a lawsuit against Perplexity in March 2026. A federal judge granted Amazon a preliminary injunction blocking Perplexity's Comet browser from scraping Amazon's website, framing the case as an early test of agentic commerce. CNBC

Amazon had accused Perplexity of covertly accessing private Amazon customer accounts through the Comet browser. Reuters. The Ninth Circuit had previously issued a reprieve allowing Perplexity's Comet shopping bots to remain on Amazon while the appeal was pending, reported on March 17, 2026. Bloomberg

Amazon stated to Engadget that it "respectfully disagrees with the Ninth Circuit's decision on the preliminary injunction, remains confident in its case, and is evaluating its next steps." Amazon can ask the Ninth Circuit for a rehearing or seek Supreme Court review. The case, listed among the Ninth Circuit's published opinions as 'Amazon.com Services, LLC v. Perplexity AI, Inc.', will proceed in the San Francisco federal court where it was originally filed. Engadget

The distinction the Ninth Circuit drew between a tool provider and the tool's operator addresses a core architectural question in agentic commerce. When a browser executes a task on behalf of a user, determining who is "accessing" a remote computer dictates who bears liability under statutes designed for an earlier era of computing. The court's reasoning places the action with the user directing the software, not the entity distributing it. This framework has implications for any AI agent designed to interact with third-party services, suggesting that user-directed automation does not automatically equate to unauthorized access by the developer. By grounding its CFAA analysis in user agency, the appellate court has provided a structural boundary that other developers building AI agents will likely examine closely.

For platform operators, the ruling narrows the CFAA as a tool for restricting third-party agents. Amazon's litigation path remains open, but the appellate court's public-interest framing raises the bar for injunctions predicated on automated access. The outcome leaves platforms dependent on technical access controls rather than judicial intervention to manage agentic traffic.