Mimmo Palmieri’s Post

Talking about early-stage legal disputes, always means you're a hostage to fortune. And when tech companies get lawyered up, the result is usually more heat than light. Even so, this case has the potential to be interesting. It should be a surprise to no one that Amazon doesn't want AI agents scouring its channels on behalf of consumers: its business model is based on guiding humans to buy what it wants to sell, which isn't always the product that best matches the consumers' requirements. Clearly, having an AI agent that's impervious to the UX nudges, and doesn't mind trawling through thousands of options isn't great for Amazon's profit margins. Where it gets really interesting is Amazon's defence. In highlighting the impact of agents on its advertising business, Amazon raises an almost existential question for today's internet. Advertisers won't pay for agents being served ads. But if and when humans offload the bulk of their online activities to agents, what's the point of online advertising? Maybe agents never get that far. Maybe advertising adapts again. But if software starts making most online decisions on our behalf, the internet’s ad-driven economy suddenly looks a lot less secure — and might force more of us to rethink what it means to get engagement. https://lnkd.in/eD2zxkWH

Amazon and Perplexity are still battling it out in court. I've been following this case for awhile now, most people I talk to did not realize that Amazon is suing Perplexity. From the looks of it this case is far from over, and how this case will impact the broader industry is unknown. What I do know is that litigation is costly, and that the details of this case here are likely familiar to many professionals who have built AI Tools and Agents. Take a look at these two quotes from the articles. "Amazon sued Perplexity in November, accusing the AI startup of covertly accessing private Amazon customer accounts through its Comet browser and associated AI agent, and of disguising automated activity as human browsing. The lawsuit said Perplexity's ⁠system posed security risks for customer data and that it had ignored repeated requests to stop." - Reuters (Link in Comments) "In a ruling dated Monday, U.S. District Judge Maxine Chesney wrote that Amazon has provided “strong evidence” that Perplexity’s Comet browser accessed its website at the user’s direction, but “without authorization” from the e-commerce giant." - CNBC This is not a small issue, this case may impact how Agents and other Tools are built in the future. The court is wrestling with a new type of "Agent", not the type that I learned about in law school, rather a digital creation with massive capacity for independent action. This reminds me of a wonderful paper I read, linked in comments, about the limitations of current Agency law when dealing with these new autonomous capabilities. One of the authors Mark Riedl was kind enough to talk to me about the paper, and I highly recommend checking it out. My one immediate takeaway from this for me is I need to learn more about how prevalent the issue is and I need to learn more about some of the technical aspects of the case. https://lnkd.in/dJa4J3xy

A federal judge just blocked Perplexity's AI shopping agent from buying on Amazon. This is the first court ruling on autonomous AI shopping agents. It matters. The short version: Perplexity built Comet, a browser agent that logs into your Amazon account and buys stuff for you. Amazon blocked it. Perplexity bypassed the block within 24 hours by disguising Comet as a Chrome browser. Amazon sued. On March 9, Judge Chesney issued a preliminary injunction. The core ruling: a user giving an AI agent permission to act on their behalf does not equal the platform authorizing that access. User consent ≠ platform authorization. That distinction is going to define how agentic commerce actually works at scale. Think about what this means for Shopify merchants. There are now two paths forming: Authorized integrations. Shopify's Agentic Storefronts, UCP, Google's Business Agent. The merchant opts in. The platform opts in. The agent operates within agreed protocols. Clean. Unauthorized scraping. Third-party agents logging into platforms, navigating checkout flows, placing orders without the platform's permission. That path just got a federal injunction. If you're a merchant wondering where to invest time and budget, this ruling answers it. Build for the authorized channel. Get your product data structured so agents within UCP and ACP can find and transact with you properly. The brands that win in agentic commerce won't be the ones hoping some rogue browser agent drives orders. They'll be the ones whose data is clean enough for authorized agents to select them. Perplexity has until March 17 to appeal.

Legal Precedent: U.S. Court Blocks Perplexity AI’s Shopping Bot on Amazon ⚖️🛒 A federal court in San Francisco has issued a temporary injunction against Perplexity AI, halting its "Comet" browser agent from performing automated purchases on Amazon. The ruling follows allegations from Amazon that the AI accessed password-protected systems without the platform's authorization. Key Implications: Authorization vs. Consent: The court noted that while users may consent to AI access, the platform provider (Amazon) has not. Ad Market Disruption: AI agents could shift how consumers interact with search, potentially impacting the $350 billion digital advertising industry. Compliance: Perplexity has been ordered to stop accessing restricted Prime areas and delete any collected Amazon data. Read the full report on how this case could redefine the rules for autonomous AI agents - https://lnkd.in/gj2gBMb6 #AI #Amazon #PerplexityAI #LegalTech #Ecommerce #ArtificialIntelligence #DigitalAds

Its going to be tough for Perplexity winning against Google and Amazon's. Amazon’s entire business depends on controlling the shopping journey. A few years ago, Amazon removed SyenApp from their affiliate platform. The reason given was that SyenApp stored Amazon users’ ID information under a @syenapp.com account. But the real issue is simple — Amazon doesn’t want any merchant, platform, or competitor to know what Amazon users are buying on Amazon. Think about it. Have you ever seen an Amazon e-receipt that you can upload into another shopping app or service? You can’t. That data stays inside Amazon’s walls. So it’s no surprise they’re pushing back on AI shopping agents. If an external AI can browse, compare, and buy on behalf of users, Amazon loses control of the shopping journey. And AI agents don’t click ads, sponsored listings, or upsells — the most profitable layers of the marketplace. From Amazon’s perspective, that’s existential. Good luck Perplexity

The Authorization Gap: What Amazon's Perplexity Injunction Reveals About the Commerce Layer Walmart Is Building Differently The Amazon-Perplexity AI injunction isn't primarily a story about a startup getting blocked. It's a ruling that drew a line between user consent and platform authorization, and that line has direct implications for how Walmart Connect's agentic advertising formats will need to work, how your product content gets surfaced through Sparky versus traditional search, and what data relationships will matter most when AI agents, not shoppers, are making the first call on what gets considered. Read more: https://lnkd.in/gzupjUki

Interesting legal precedent on agentic browsers and bots...Amazon wins court order to block Perplexity's AI shopping agent https://buff.ly/LJRtUB8 #govtech #agenticAI

Amazon just changed the rules of digital advertising. And many advertisers still don’t know it. In 2025, Amazon introduced Amazon Consent Signal (ACS) across the UK and EEA, a system that tells Amazon Ads whether a user has actually allowed their data to be used, and from which country that consent was given. No assumptions. No compliance grey areas. Just verified consent signals before an ad is even delivered. So what does this mean for advertisers? ✔ Country-level consent verification using ISO codes ✔ Ads shown only when user permission exists ✔ Better control for cross-border campaigns ✔ Clear audit-ready transparency for compliance teams One thing is now undeniable: 👉 The future of advertising runs on user consent. And that’s where Seers.ai makes it simple. With 1-click Amazon Consent Signal integration, Seers ensures your consent signals reach Amazon Ads seamlessly, so your campaigns stay compliant while reaching the right audience at the right moment. The real question is: Are your Amazon Ads ready for the consent-first era? #AmazonConsentSignal #PrivacyFirst #AdTech #CookieConsent #AICompliance #DigitalAdvertising #SeersAI

Why the Amazon v. Perplexity Ruling Won’t Stop the Evolution of Search The recent court order blocking Perplexity's AI agent from crawling Amazon has ignited a pointed debate: Is this the end of AI shopping agents, or merely a speed bump on a road no one can close? I believe it's the latter. Traditional search engines have built empires on permitted crawling for decades. AI engines can operate on the same foundation, fetching data through established crawling mechanisms while adding a layer of intelligence that index-based search has never been able to offer. The infrastructure isn't new; the capability on top of it is. The web will adapt. Just as publishers learned to optimize for SEO, they will learn to optimize for AI. That shift is already underway. More importantly, user expectations have fundamentally changed. People no longer want a list of blue links and the cognitive load that comes with navigating them. They want a coherent experience — one where discovery, navigation, and assistance happen in a single flow. This isn't a corruption of the "search" spirit. It's the natural evolution of it. History is instructive here. Whenever a new technology delivers a 10x improvement in user experience, the old guard eventually has to find a way to work with it rather than against it. We saw it with the music industry and streaming. We saw it with retail and the web itself. The legal battles will continue. But the broader shift — from Search to Navigation to Assistance — represents a fundamental change in how people interact with the internet. Blocking a single crawler may serve a short-term data protection goal. It won't stop the demand for a better way to shop, discover, and decide. #AI #Ecommerce #SearchEngines #TechTrends #Amazon #PerplexityAI #FutureOfTech https://lnkd.in/gBbTZR2y

A federal judge temporarily blocked startup Perplexity from accessing Amazon's site with its Comet artificial intelligence browser, according to court filings. Amazon sued Perplexity in November, alleging the startup took steps to "conceal" its AI agents so they could continue to scrape the online retailer's website without its approval. Perplexity called the lawsuit, which was filed in U.S. district court in the Northern District of California, a "bully tactic." https://lnkd.in/dU-CkXKJ #Amazon #WinsCourtOrder2Block #PerplexityShoppingAgent