Amazon Blocks Perplexity’s AI Shopping Tool in Court

Amazon has won a court order temporarily blocking Perplexity AI from using its website data for a shopping assistant. The tool via its Comet browser/agent automatically pulled product listings, prices, and other info from Amazon’s site and used it to answer user questions and suggest items.

Amazon argued that the AI tool violated its terms of service. The company said Perplexity’s scraping could mislead shoppers and create confusion over pricing and product availability. In a shocking turn of events no one saw coming, the court agreed and issued a temporary injunction, stopping the tool from accessing Amazon’s pages while the case continues.

Perplexity’s AI used automated scripts to pull data in real time, including product names, prices, stock levels, and sometimes images to give recommendations. Amazon claims that method bypassed access restrictions and could misrepresent info, even if it wasn’t altered.

Key Details

The court order is temporary, but it immediately stops the tool’s functionality for Amazon products. Perplexity must destroy collected Amazon data and stop Comet from interacting with Amazon’s site in this way. It doesn't block Perplexity from recommending Amazon products generally (e.g., via search summaries), but it stops the agent from logging in, scraping private data, or making purchases. They can still show results for other retailers, but Amazon listings are blocked until the legal review is complete. Amazon says this ensures customers are not misled by AI-generated recommendations.

This is one of the first legal cases where a platform has successfully limited an AI tool’s access to its content. It could set a precedent for how AI assistants use live data.

Who Cares?

Nobody, really.

JK. Shoppers, if you use Perplexity’s AI shopping assistant, forget about Amazon products. Dear devs, it highlights the legal risk of scraping large e-commerce sites, even for AI purposes. Courts are now starting to define what AI can and cannot do with live website data.

The ruling doesn’t punish Perplexity, it just enforces temporary boundaries while the court figures out the long-term rules. The outcome could influence tools that rely on scraping live content from websites.