The Ninth Circuit held argument last week in a very interesting case on the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, the computer hacking statute, Amazon.com Services v. Perplexity AI, No. 26-1444. The basic issue: If an Amazon user wants to use an AI agent to help make purchasing decisions on the user's behalf at Amazon, but Amazon doesn't want users to do that, has the AI company committed a federal hacking crime if Amazon tells the AI company to stay away but the AI company continues to make its services available to the Amazon customers?
Perplexity AI's main brief is here, and Amazon's main brief is here. Oral argument is below.
