Amazon wins court order to block Perplexity's AI shopping agent

SilverElfin

I don’t understand how this can be legal. Why can’t a shopping agent go act on my behalf? What right does Amazon have to block this, especially when it is well known that they scrape everyone else’s website to run their anti competitive pricing scheme? > Amazon wrote in its original complaint that Perplexity’s agents posed security risks to customer data because they “can act within protected computer systems, including private customer accounts requiring a password.” Is Amazon arguing that all agents are dangerous, while they are simultaneously pushing agents all over the place in AWS to customers, and guiding them to literally use agents within “protected computer systems”?

JumpCrisscross

The court order [1] finds likely violations of 18 U.S.C. § 1030(a)(2) as parsed by LVRC v. Brekka [2] which prohibits “(1) intentionally access[ing] a computer, (2) without authorization or exceeding authorized access, and that [it] (3) thereby obtain[s] information (4) from any protected computer (if the conduct involved an interstate or foreign communication), and [where] (5) there was loss to one or more persons during any one-year period aggregating at least $5,000 in value.” [1] https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.45... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LVRC_Holdings_LLC_v._Brekka

pants2

I understand Amazon wants to protect their customer experience / advertising potential and avoid being commoditized, ie. "hey perplexity order me the cheapest option between Amazon and 17 other online retailers." However I think they're fighting a losing battle here. Atlas browser for instance can shop on Amazon just fine and they'll have a hard time distinguishing between human and LLM without broadly getting restraining orders against every AI company.

c0_0p_

I was a big fan of Perplexity early on, but their product (at least the free version) has deteriorated so much in the last few months. I don't think they test enough with the cheaper LLMs they are using. - Code blocks are often not formatted or highlighted, unless I explicitly ask for it to be. - The font is often Times New Roman for some reason. If I log out then things are usually a bit better.