Ninth Circuit: User-Directed AI Agents Don't Trigger CFAA Liability for Developers

The Ninth Circuit overturned an injunction blocking Perplexity's Comet browser AI shopping tool from Amazon, ruling that when a browser acts on user direction, the user—not the developer—accesses the remote computer. This CFAA precedent extends to any AI agent interacting with third-party services: user-directed automation does not automatically equal unauthorized access by the developer. Amazon's underlying lawsuit continues in San Francisco federal court.