• by Wendy Davis , Yesterday

In a defeat for Amazon, a federal appellate court on Thursday rejected the company's most recent bid to prohibit Perplexity from shopping on Amazon.com on users' behalf.

The move left in place a ruling issued last month by a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which lifted an injunction that would have banned Perplexity's shopping agent, Comet, from Amazon.

Circuit Judge Milan Smith wrote in the court's opinion that an injunction against Perplexity "would impair consumer choice and needlessly limit development of a nascent technology."

Soon after that ruling came out, Amazon urged the 9th Circuit to reconsider, arguing that the opinion in favor of Perplexity "degraded website owners’ ability  to set the terms on which powerful, fast-evolving, and potentially destructive AI agents may enter their secure systems."

The 9th Circuit said Thursday that none of its judges requested a vote on whether to re-hear the case.

The battle over Perplexity began in November, when Amazon alleged that Comet shopped for users and made purchases on their behalf despite Amazon's attempt to implement technological blocks, and a cease-and-desist demand.

In March, U.S. District Court Judge Maxine Chesney in the Northern District of California ruled that Amazon would likely prove Perplexity violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act by accessing Amazon users' accounts with their permission, but without Amazon's authorization.

That law -- introduced soon after the 1983 movie "WarGames" came out -- includes provisions that prohibit companies from accessing other businesses' web servers without authorization.

Chesney issued an injunction banning Perplexity's shopping agent from Amazon.com, and directing Perplexity to destroy data obtained by Comet.

Perplexity quickly appealed to the 9th Circuit, which blocked the injunction.

The appellate judges said in last month's ruling that Perplexity did not "access" Amazon's site, and therefore Amazon was unlikely to succeed with its claim that Perplexity violated the anti-hacking law.

"It is the user who 'accesses' Amazon’s computers, with the help of the Assistant to carry out specific acts on Amazon.com," Smith wrote. "To be sure, Perplexity may receive screenshots of the user’s browser and may communicate instructions to the Assistant. But those activities, by themselves, do not mean that Perplexity has 'accessed' (gained entry) to Amazon’s servers."

Amazon disputed that conclusion, arguing that Perplexity itself accesses the retailer's site.

"Users may or may not choose to access Amazon, but the assistant will access Amazon regardless, acting under Perplexity’s control," Amazon wrote. "The record shows that users may make generic requests such as 'order paper towels,' yet Perplexity’s 'reasoning layer' will direct the assistant to enter the Amazon store, present the user’s stored credentials, and click through secured pages."

Amazon has not yet responded to MediaPost's request for comment about the 9th Circuit's refusal to reconsider the matter.