Ninth Circuit Rejects Amazon's CFAA Theory Against Comet
On Tuesday, August 4, 2026, the Ninth Circuit lifted Amazon's injunction against Perplexity's Comet Assistant and found Amazon unlikely to succeed on its Computer Fraud and Abuse Act claim, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The court treated the user, rather than Perplexity, as the party accessing Amazon through the tool and described the Assistant as a tool rather than a statutory person.
The Ninth Circuit lifted an injunction restricting Perplexity's Comet Assistant and found Amazon unlikely to establish Computer Fraud and Abuse Act liability against Perplexity, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The dispute concerns an Assistant feature that can browse sites, including Amazon, for comparison-shopping purposes. AIWeekly reported that the appellate court lifted the injunction that had banned the feature from Amazon.com.
Amazon had argued that Perplexity violated the CFAA because the company lacked authorization to access Amazon users' accounts. EFF reports that the court rejected that framing at the preliminary stage, concluding that users operate the browser and access Amazon's servers, rather than Perplexity itself.
The court's treatment of agentic access
According to EFF's account of the ruling, the court described the Assistant as "a tool, not a person for statutory purposes." The court also found that Perplexity receiving account information from users and using it to instruct the Assistant did not establish the degree of control necessary to treat Perplexity as the party accessing Amazon.
AIWeekly reports that Judge Milan Smith compared a Comet user visiting Amazon from their own machine with a conventional-browser user, reasoning that an AI assistant does not make Perplexity the accessor any more than a browser makes its developer the accessor. EFF states that the opinion credited its amicus explanation as the clearest articulation of the system's technical operation.
The ruling did not resolve every potential claim between the companies. EFF notes that the court indicated Amazon could have other viable claims, while finding the CFAA theory legally weak in this dispute. EFF further reports that the court warned Amazon's interpretation could expose users themselves to criminal liability.
Implications for AI tool builders
The decision addresses how a user-authorized AI agent fits into the CFAA. EFF notes that the court recognized there is little to no prior case law assigning responsibility for AI agents under the CFAA.
For developers, the factual distinction emphasized in the reported ruling is consequential
a tool acting through a user's browser may be analyzed differently from a provider directly operating automated access to a third-party service. Comparable disputes may still involve questions about how users and providers share responsibility, as well as legal claims beyond the CFAA. The decision therefore narrows one asserted theory of liability in this case, rather than establishing blanket permission for agentic browsing.
Key Points
- 1The Ninth Circuit treated the user as the relevant Amazon accessor, weakening Amazon's CFAA claim against Perplexity's browser-based AI Assistant.
- 2The court called the Assistant a tool rather than a statutory person, making questions about the agent's intent irrelevant to this case.
- 3The ruling addresses the CFAA theory in this dispute while leaving other potential claims and novel questions about AI-agent responsibility open.
Scoring Rationale
The ruling provides a notable appellate interpretation of how the CFAA applies to user-operated agentic browser tools. It is especially relevant to teams building web agents and browser automation, though the reported decision is limited to the CFAA theory and this dispute.
Sources
Public references used for this report.
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