Amazon wins court order to block Perplexity's AI shopping agent | Hacker News Reader

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

cnbc.com

29 pointsSilverElfin10 comments

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

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”?

Law is always nuanced and contextual. This is also a temporary restraining order, which means no verdict has been reached. The "jury is still out" on this one.

The judge finds Amazon likely to succeed on the merits for this case that involves specifics in how Perplexity worked, especially for the impact on other business activities, such as meeting their existing contractual relationships with advertisers.

The last paragraph does seem to indicate a strong yes to your last questions.

It's interesting to see that argument was based on Amazon having dedicated employee time to blocking Perplexity. Obviously bots can be a drag, but if these were agents shopping on behalf of users, that seems counterproductive (I take it Amazon's vision is that the only AI agents they want to support are their own, but imagine trying to claim that you needed to spend a lot of your employees' time on painting the windows of the office building so your competition couldn't see inside...)

They were more than bots shopping for users, at least that's what it sounds like without diving into the fillings

> What right does Amazon have to block this

18 U.S.C. § 1030(a)(2) [1] lets site owners restrict access to a “protected computer”, which is “a computer…which is used in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce or communication, including a computer located outside the United States that is used in a manner that affects interstate or foreign commerce or communication of the United States” [2].

It’s unclear if this applies to public website. But the courts seem to apply it to any password-protected content.

[1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1030

[2] https://www.law.cornell.edu/definitions/uscode.php?width=840...

Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer and none of this is legal advice.

Except Amazon does not restrict accessing their protected computers how they were accessed. Rather they actually encourage customers to access their protected computers in the hopes those customers will buy things.

This is another attempt to abuse the CFAA to make a private contract enforced with a severity of criminal charges.

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.

I find this court response confusing, but an alt pov: Amazon wants to block _other people_ from using my ID (say, to watch prime video or access prime shipping or discounts). They can extend that logic to suggest that an "agent", with agency, is the same issue: it's just "another person".

And we've seen the continual push against "Bots" who act without agency, but are seen to abuse systems as they act as "more than a person".

But I think we'll see the usual outcome: the barrier has to be upheld, so the folks behind the barrier can exert a toll on access.

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.

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