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

The appellate court concluded that Amazon's claim under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), a federal law originally written to criminalize hacking into computer systems, did not hold up. Central to the court's reasoning was how the Comet browser works: because Comet requires the user to direct it to interact with Amazon, the court determined that it is the individual 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), a similar state-level law, would not serve the public interest. Engadget

The dispute became public in November 2025, when Amazon sent Perplexity a cease-and-desist letter demanding it block its AI browser from reaching Amazon's online store. Amazon filed a lawsuit in March 2026, and a federal judge granted a preliminary injunction blocking Comet from scraping Amazon's website, framing the case as an early test of agentic commerce, the term for AI systems that carry out tasks on a user's behalf, such as browsing and purchasing. CNBC

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

Amazon told Engadget 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's provider and its operator addresses a core question in agentic commerce. When a browser carries out a task on behalf of a user, determining who is "accessing" a remote computer dictates who bears liability under laws written for an earlier era of computing. The court's reasoning places the action with the person directing the software, not the company distributing it. This framework has implications for any AI agent built to interact with third-party services, suggesting that user-directed automation does not automatically equate to unauthorized access by the developer.

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 based on automated access. The outcome leaves platforms reliant on technical access controls, such as bot-detection systems or API limits, rather than judicial intervention to manage agentic traffic.