Overview
- A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a March injunction on Perplexity’s Comet Assistant, ruling Tuesday that Perplexity was unlikely to win a CFAA claim against the company.
- The court said Perplexity’s tool functions as a user-operated browser assistant and that it is the user who "accesses" Amazon’s systems for purposes of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
- The decision leaves open other legal routes for Amazon because the ruling is narrow and focused on statutory interpretation of the CFAA rather than contract, state-law, fraud, or terms-of-service claims.
- Advocacy groups including the Electronic Frontier Foundation argued in court filings that using the CFAA against browser tools would chill innovation and could expose ordinary users to criminal liability, a view the panel cited in its reasoning.
- For users this means Perplexity may continue offering agentic shopping features on Amazon for now, and the companies could seek further appeals or alternative legal theories that would shape future limits on agentic AI.