--- title: "Amazon says Perplexity's app contradicted what its lawyers told a federal appeals court" description: "A 41-page amended complaint filed the same day as the Muse block alleges Comet for iOS shops Amazon from Perplexity's own cloud, while Perplexity's appeals briefs said no company computer ever directly touches Amazon. Behind both moves sits the $68 billion ad business that bills advertisers for human impressions." publisher: "The Inference" section: "Applications" published: 2026-09-23T00:07:42.912Z modified: 2026-09-23T00:07:42.912Z canonical: https://theinference.org/article/amazon-says-perplexity-s-app-contradicted-what-its-lawyers-told-a-federal-appeals-court language: en keywords: "Amazon, Perplexity, AI Agents, Agentic Commerce, Meta" --- # Amazon says Perplexity's app contradicted what its lawyers told a federal appeals court > A 41-page amended complaint filed the same day as the Muse block alleges Comet for iOS shops Amazon from Perplexity's own cloud, while Perplexity's appeals briefs said no company computer ever directly touches Amazon. Behind both moves sits the $68 billion ad business that bills advertisers for human impressions. ## Amazon filed 41 pages the same day it blocked Muse Muse users started hitting a wall on 20 September 2026: "continued access by an unauthorized AI agent violates [Amazon](https://theinference.org/markets/companies/amazon)'s Conditions of Use" [1][2]. Amazon says the agent does not identify itself, appears to capture and store customer credentials, and scrapes account data [1][3]. The quieter move was in court: on 21 September Amazon [amended its San Francisco lawsuit against Perplexity](https://thenextweb.com/news/amazon-blocks-muse-perplexity-amended-complaint), pleading computer fraud, California's computer data access statute and tortious interference across 41 pages [4][9]. The new material targets Comet for iOS, launched 18 March 2026. A district court had [enjoined the earlier Comet](https://theinference.org/article/america-s-no-1-app-is-banned-from-america-s-biggest-store) on 9 March, after Amazon sued that month [4][9]. On iOS, the filing alleges, the app copies the user's Amazon session cookie to [Perplexity](https://theinference.org/markets/companies/perplexity)'s cloud, where a virtual browser requests Amazon pages directly: "No user device touches Amazon's servers" [4]. ## The ruling the complaint is built to flip That sentence is aimed at [the opinion of 4 August 2026](https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/ninth-circuit-vacates-cfaa-injunction-5942981/). The Ninth Circuit vacated Amazon's preliminary injunction because, on the record before it, the user's browser talked to Amazon while Perplexity processed screenshots; the user, not the company, was doing the "accessing" under federal anti-hacking law [5]. The panel called the Assistant "a tool, not a person", limited its holding to that record, and pointed to Amazon's terms of service [6]. [Rehearing was denied on 10 September](https://www.msn.com/en-us/general/general/amazon-blocks-meta-s-muse-ai-assistant-in-new-standoff-over-agentic-shopping/ar-AA2cEENv) [1]. If no user device sits in the middle, that premise is gone, and that is the engineering point. ## What Amazon says its engineers watched Perplexity's briefs of 1 April and 6 May represented that "no Perplexity computer ever has direct access to an Amazon computer" [4]. Amazon alleges its engineers logged exactly that traffic every day from 18 March to at least 11 May; that its counsel demanded page-by-page corrections on 6 May; and that Perplexity repeated the statements in a reply brief filed later that day, then switched the iOS feature off on 11 May as "a measure of good-faith" [4]. The ledger attached: damages beyond $260,000, eight members of its traffic engineering team, 1,280 hours since July 2025, and at least 185,712 Comet sessions on Amazon.com by 15 June [4]. Every figure is Amazon's allegation; Perplexity has not filed a response to the amended complaint [4]. ## Perplexity's answer, so far Its public position, quoted in Amazon's own filing, is that Amazon is "demanding we prohibit Comet users from using their AI assistants on Amazon" [4]. In November 2025 it called [Amazon's cease-and-desist](https://www.cnbc.com/2025/11/04/perplexity-ai-amazon-bullying-comet-browser.html) "an aggressive legal threat" from a company "more interested in serving you ads, sponsored results, and influencing your purchasing decisions" [7]. Amazon booked more than $68 billion in advertising revenue in 2025 [1]. Amazon is not against agents as such: its Buy for Me feature shops external brand sites, identifies itself, and lets brands opt out [1]. ## The contract door the court left open The Muse popup accuses nobody of hacking. It cites Conditions of Use amended on 30 May 2025 to require agents to identify themselves as "Agent/[agent name]" [4][8]. The complaint says Comet sends Google Chrome's user-agent string and changed it each time Amazon learned to detect it, conduct [Cloudflare](https://theinference.org/markets/companies/cloudflare) flagged in August 2025 before removing Perplexity from its verified operators [4]. The popup, the ruling's invitation and the complaint run through one door: the Agent Terms Amazon wrote on 30 May 2025, a contract moat the Ninth Circuit itself pointed to when it noted Amazon may regulate access through private terms of service [6]. Amazon said on 4 August it was "confident in our case" and evaluating next steps; the amended complaint is one [9]. The docket now carries a single question: whether Perplexity's servers were where its lawyers told a federal court they were not. ## Takeaway Amazon's amended complaint turns a platform dispute into a credibility fight: if Comet for iOS really routed Amazon traffic through Perplexity's own cloud while its lawyers told the Ninth Circuit no company computer ever touched Amazon, the user-device premise behind August's ruling collapses, and Amazon's Agent Terms become the contract moat that decides which agents may shop its store. ## Sources 1. [GeekWire (Todd Bishop), Amazon blocks Meta's Muse AI assistant in new standoff over agentic shopping, 20 September 2026](https://www.msn.com/en-us/general/general/amazon-blocks-meta-s-muse-ai-assistant-in-new-standoff-over-agentic-shopping/ar-AA2cEENv) 2. [The Verge (Jess Weatherbed), Amazon blocks Meta's Muse AI agent, 21 September 2026](https://www.theverge.com/tech/998078/amazon-blocks-meta-muse-ai-agent-shopping) 3. [Business Insider (Georgia Hennessy), Amazon is keeping Meta's Muse out of its shopping carts, 21 September 2026](https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/amazon-is-keeping-meta-s-muse-out-of-its-shopping-carts/ar-AA2cGou3) 4. [The Next Web, Amazon blocks Meta's Muse and accuses Perplexity of misleading a court, 21 September 2026](https://thenextweb.com/news/amazon-blocks-muse-perplexity-amended-complaint) 5. [JD Supra (Jones Day), Ninth Circuit Vacates CFAA Injunction Against Perplexity's Comet AI Agent, 14 September 2026](https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/ninth-circuit-vacates-cfaa-injunction-5942981/) 6. [PYMNTS, Ninth Circuit Rules AI Agents Act on Behalf of Users, Not Developers, 14 September 2026](https://www.pymnts.com/news/artificial-intelligence/2026/ninth-circuit-rules-ai-agents-act-on-behalf-of-users-not-developers/) 7. [CNBC (Ashley Capoot, Annie Palmer), Perplexity AI accuses Amazon of bullying with legal threat over Comet browser, 4 November 2025](https://www.cnbc.com/2025/11/04/perplexity-ai-amazon-bullying-comet-browser.html) 8. [SiliconANGLE (Maria Deutscher), Amazon blocks Meta's Muse agent from shopping on users' behalf, 21 September 2026](https://siliconangle.com/2026/09/21/amazon-blocks-metas-muse-agent-from-shopping-on-users-behalf/) 9. [Engadget (Ian Carlos Campbell), Perplexity has successfully overturned Amazon's injunction on its AI shopping bot, 4 August 2026](https://www.engadget.com/2230471/perplexity-has-successfully-overturned-amazon-injunction-on-its-ai-shopping-bot/) --- Amazon says Perplexity's app contradicted what its lawyers told a federal appeals court — The Inference. Canonical: https://theinference.org/article/amazon-says-perplexity-s-app-contradicted-what-its-lawyers-told-a-federal-appeals-court