• by Wendy Davis , 4 hours ago

Siding against Perplexity, a federal judge has prohibited the artificial intelligence company's shopping agent, Comet, from accessing Amazon.

In a ruling issued Monday, U.S. District Court Judge Maxine Chesney in the Northern District of California said Amazon was likely going to prevail with its claim that Perplexity violated a 40-year-old federal anti-hacking law by accessing the retailer's site without its authorization.

"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," Chesney wrote. "Given such evidence, the Court finds Amazon has shown a likelihood of success on the merits."

Chesney stayed the injunction for seven days, giving Perplexity the opportunity to appeal.

The artificial intelligence company on Tuesday initiated an appeal to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, but hasn't yet made substantive arguments to that court.

A Perplexity spokesperson says it "will continue to fight for the right of internet users to choose whatever AI they want."

The dispute between the companies dates to November 2025, when Amazon sued Perplexity for allegedly "trespassing" into Amazon's server. The retailer alleged that Perplexity, through the Comet browser, shopped for users and made purchases on their behalf -- even after Amazon attempted to implement technological blocks and sent Perplexity a cease-and-desist letter.

Amazon claimed Perplexity was violating the 1986 federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which prohibits companies from accessing computer servers without permission, as well as a California state anti-hacking law.

Amazon argued in a request for an injunction that it requires artificial intelligence agents to identify themselves when shopping on its site, adding that other companies with artificial intelligence agents "have respected Amazon’s right to monitor and control access to its protected computer systems."

Perplexity allegedly "purposely configured Comet to hide its agentic activities in the Amazon" by designing Comet "to falsely portray its activities as coming from Google Chrome," Amazon alleged in its request for an injunction.

Perplexity opposed Amazon's request, arguing in papers filed with Chesney that the lawsuit was "a bald attempt by Amazon to block its own customers" from using Comet.

Perplexity argued that Amazon's suit was driven by a desire to advertise to shoppers.

"AI agents don’t have eyeballs to see the pervasive advertising Amazon bombards its users with and cannot be upsold to buy more products," Perplexity argued. "Those are the real reasons Amazon filed this suit and seeks a preliminary injunction."

The 9th Circuit hasn't yet set a schedule for Perplexity's appeal.