Amazon Wins Injunction Blocking AI Shopping Agent, Orders Customer Data Deletion
U.S. District Judge Maxine Chesney granted Amazon a preliminary injunction blocking Perplexity AI’s Comet browser from placing purchases on Amazon and ordered it to delete data after finding unauthorized access to Prime accounts. The ruling follows Perplexity’s August 2025 bypass of Amazon’s technical block and includes a seven-day appeal stay.
1. Preliminary Injunction Granted
U.S. District Judge Maxine Chesney issued a preliminary injunction prohibiting Perplexity AI’s Comet browser from placing purchases on Amazon and ordered the startup to delete data obtained from Prime accounts within seven days, with the injunction stayed for that period pending appeal.
2. Timeline of Dispute and Technical Bypass
Amazon filed suit in November 2025 under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and a California fraud statute after issuing five warnings to Perplexity since November 2024; when Amazon implemented a technical block in August 2025, Perplexity released an update within 24 hours to bypass it, prompting the court to cite this circumvention in its ruling.
3. Impact on Amazon’s E-Commerce and Ad Revenue
The decision protects Amazon’s e-commerce infrastructure and preserves over $68.6 billion in 2025 advertising revenue by preventing automated agents from skipping sponsored listings and checkout funnels, while Amazon explores its own agentic commerce tools that comply with its personalization and pricing standards.