{
 "public_id": "AIR-2025-0167",
 "incident_id": "2026-08-amazon-perplexity-comet-cfaa",
 "date_disclosed": "2025-11-04",
 "date_occurred": "2025-11-01",
 "title": "Amazon v. Perplexity: first federal appellate ruling on whether an AI shopping agent accessing a user account violates the CFAA",
 "class": "in_the_wild",
 "attack_surface": "browser_agent",
 "initial_vector": "agent_logged_into_password_protected_user_accounts_on_third_party_site",
 "agent_capability_abused": [
  "credentialed_browsing",
  "account_login",
  "autonomous_purchasing"
 ],
 "target_product": "Perplexity Comet browser / AI shopping assistant",
 "target_vendor": "Perplexity AI",
 "autonomy_level": "semi_autonomous",
 "impact_realized": false,
 "impact_type": [
  "unauthorized_access_alleged",
  "legal_precedent"
 ],
 "blast_radius": "Amazon.com accounts of Comet users; sets CFAA precedent for all agentic browsers in the Ninth Circuit",
 "cve": [],
 "taxonomy": {
  "owasp_asi": [
   "ASI10",
   "ASI03"
  ],
  "mitre_atlas": [],
  "labels": [
   "agentic_commerce",
   "cfaa",
   "agent_identity",
   "platform_vs_agent"
  ]
 },
 "defense_present": "Amazon bot detection and terms of service; a 2024 agentic-shopping pause agreement",
 "defense_bypassed": true,
 "fix_shipped": "District court preliminary injunction (March 2026) vacated by the Ninth Circuit on 2026-08-04",
 "primary_sources": [
  "https://www.troutmanprivacy.com/2026/08/ninth-circuit-holds-human-user-not-developer-of-ai-agent-responsible-for-websites-accessed/",
  "https://www.engadget.com/2230471/perplexity-has-successfully-overturned-amazon-injunction-on-its-ai-shopping-bot/"
 ],
 "verified_quote": "Comet's AI agents had navigated through Amazon's password-protected pages, accessed users' private account information, and transmitted that data to Perplexity's servers",
 "confidence": "high",
 "notes": "Amazon filed in the N.D. Cal. in November 2025 alleging CFAA and California CDAFA violations; the district court granted a preliminary injunction in March 2026; the Ninth Circuit unanimously vacated it on 2026-08-04, holding that it is the user who accesses Amazon's computers with the help of the Assistant. impact_realized set false: the alleged harm was contested and the appellate court found Amazon unlikely to succeed. Amazon says it disagrees and is evaluating next steps. Engadget's date for the filing (March 2026) conflicts with the November 2025 filing date given by the law-firm analysis; the latter is used.",
 "risk_category": "legal_ip",
 "risk_secondary": [],
 "risk_subcategory": "Breach of Contract / TOS Violation Enablement",
 "risk_sub_secondary": [],
 "risk_override_reason": "an appellate ruling on whether agent access against site terms is unauthorised; the outcome is legal exposure",
 "ai_entity": "generative",
 "agency": "agent_acted",
 "agency_debatable": false,
 "agency_reason": "the shopping agent logged in and purchased on the user's account",
 "vector_family": "other",
 "vector_detail": "agent_logged_into_password_protected_user_accounts_on_third_party_site",
 "guardrail_kind": [
  "policy_only"
 ],
 "guardrail_outcome": "silent",
 "xrefs": {
  "aiid": [],
  "atlas": [],
  "cve": [],
  "ghsa": []
 },
 "primary_asi": "ASI10",
 "agent_framework": "perplexity_comet",
 "model_provider": "unknown",
 "model_name": "",
 "detection_mechanism": "unknown",
 "tool_access": "unknown",
 "financial_loss_band": "unknown",
 "eai_category": "policy_drift",
 "eai_domain": "governance",
 "eai_secondary": [
  "privilege_escalation"
 ],
 "eai_reason": "subcategory: Breach of Contract / TOS Violation Enablement",
 "asi_curated": [],
 "asi_scope": "in_scope",
 "asi_provenance": "override",
 "asi_reason": "override: Amazon v. Perplexity is contested precisely over agent scope: an agent logging into a user's account on a platform that forbids it is behavioural divergence from the operator's authorized scope first (ASI10) and an identity question second (ASI03). vector_family is other, so the no-adversary gate did not fire, but the record carries no adversary.",
 "submitted_by": "EAI Internal"
}