Amazon earlierLetter sent to AI startup Perplexitydemanding that its subsidiariesCometImmediately cease the use of AI-powered automated purchasing on Amazon's e-commerce platform. This move immediately sparked Perplexity.Strong reboundThey believe that Amazon's demands constitute "bullying" and pose a threat to all internet users.
Amazon: Violation of Terms of Service, Providing a Downgraded Experience
Amazon, however, believes that Comet's proxy AI feature violates its terms of service, alleging that such behavior violates its prohibition against "using bots or similar data collection tools" and "downloading or copying account information for the benefit of any third party." Amazon also believes that such "behavior" will degrade the Amazon shopping experience and may pose privacy risks.
Amazon has also publicly stated on its official blog that third-party applications that provide AI-powered features, such as the Perplexity Comet browser, should operate in an open manner and respect the decision of service providers regarding their participation. It further pointed out that the Comet browser's features significantly impact the shopping and customer service experience.
Perplexity: The "AI agent" represents the user, not a robot.
However, Perplexity challenges the very foundation of this argument, emphasizing in its response that "user agents," as the name suggests, are "agents" representing users, which is distinct from crawlers, scrapers, or bots.
Perplexity argues that Comet's proxy function acts on behalf of the user and performs tasks with the user's explicit permission, therefore it does not violate Amazon's terms of service.
Perplexity embroiled in controversy again, this time disguised as a browser to circumvent the protocol.
The report indicates that Amazon and Perplexity had a previous dispute. Perplexity had agreed to suspend such proxy shopping features in November 2024, but then restarted the feature in the Comet browser and attempted to disguise the Comet proxy feature as a Chrome browser user to circumvent relevant usage guidelines. Amazon discovered this and sent a letter demanding that Perplexity stop such behavior.
In addition, content delivery network service providersCloudflareIn August of this year, it was also alleged that Perplexity's bots, posing as Chrome browser users operating on macOS, accessed blocked websites.RedditThey also filed a lawsuit against Perplexity, alleging that it scraped content without a paid license.
Furthermore, this dispute highlights the future competition in AI shopping. Amazon itself just showcased its own AI shopping agent in April 2025."Buy for Me"Now, facing competition from Perplexity, it will naturally try to maintain control of its own e-commerce platform.
