AI Risk Wire

Cases › security breach › LR-2026-0452

Federal judge blocks Perplexity's AI browser from making Amazon purchases

Preliminary Why: 1 report: CyberScoop · subject to change · 1 independent report

Status: no action reported

Severity moderate
Reported 10 Mar 2026
Developer and model Perplexity

No source states: loss or records, agent tool, could do, deployer, industry.

Severity moderate: Test: moderate, data of others touched with bounded scope. Fact: the order requires deletion of Amazon account and customer data the browser collected; no count of affected users is stated.

Perplexity's Comet AI browser made purchases on users' behalf in Amazon accounts, and Amazon disputed this. Amazon said the agents made mistakes, interfered with its algorithm and created security risks, and alleged that Perplexity's agents covertly posed as human traffic despite repeated requests to stop. Amazon sent a cease-and-desist letter on October 31, 2025. On March 9, 2026, a federal judge issued a temporary injunction, finding Amazon likely to succeed on claims under computer fraud and access statutes. Perplexity must stop Comet from accessing Amazon user accounts and must delete the Amazon account and customer data it collected. Perplexity argued that users had authorised the purchases. The court sided with Amazon on the public interest. Perplexity did not respond to a request for comment at press time.

What happened

1 · What it was doingPerplexity's Comet AI browser made purchases on users' behalf in their Amazon accounts.
2 · What it reached or didAmazon alleged the agents covertly posed as human traffic in its store.
3 · How it was caughtA federal court issued a temporary injunction on March 9, 2026, finding Amazon likely to succeed on its claims.

What was done

No source states an action or fix.

Risks

AI system attacked or breached
Primary23 incidents

Sorted by rule from the case's fields; not yet read from the sources.

Controls

Not yet read for controls. Controls that mitigate the primary risk:

Application

Vulnerability scanning of AI components · Adversarial testing before deployment · Short-lived, scoped credentials · Live behaviour monitoring · AI incident response plan · Segmentation of agent components · Encryption of stored data

Infrastructure / target

Known flaws patched · Intrusion and endpoint detection · Inventory of exposed services

Similar incidents

Researchers trick Perplexity Comet browser into phishing scam2026-03-11
Perplexity Comet browser agent bypasses file:// hard boundary twice, enabling local file exfiltration and 1Password vault takeover2026-10-27

All cases of this kind ›

Evidence

No source states: what went wrong, when it happened, how many records were exposed, the direct loss, a count of the other parties affected, any court case, the cause, what set it off, what was done.

Show the full account: 2 items from the primary sources

What happened, in order

  1. 2025-10-31 Amazon's law firm sent Perplexity a cease-and-desist letter alleging automated purchases degraded the shopping experience.
  2. 2026-03-09 Federal judge issued a temporary injunction blocking Perplexity's Comet from accessing Amazon accounts.
Show every field, with its source and grade

The AI system

Developer
Perplexity
C one secondary source states it
What it was allowed to do
Access to password-protected Amazon user accounts with user permission but without Amazon authorization
C one secondary source states it
What it was for
Making purchases in Amazon accounts on users' behalf
C one secondary source states it

What happened

Earliest source we hold
2026-03-10
D inferred by us from the described behaviour, reason shown
What went wrong
security breach
D inferred by us from the described behaviour, reason shown

Impact

Severity
moderate
D inferred by us from the described behaviour, reason shown
Who was affected
Amazon user accounts and customer data
C one secondary source states it
Why this severity
Test: moderate, data of others touched with bounded scope. Fact: the order requires deletion of Amazon account and customer data the browser collected; no count of affected users is stated.
D inferred by us from the described behaviour, reason shown

Notes on gaps

The date the agent activity began and the date it was detected are not stated; the cease-and-desist date and the March 9, 2026 order date are not occurrence dates. No disclosure date is stated in the body text. Amazon's allegations were not adjudicated; the order is a temporary injunction based on likelihood of success. Perplexity did not respond to a request for comment.

LR-2026-0452 · version 1 · published 2026-11-01 after automatic checks; not yet checked field by field by a person · JSON