Notes on Amazon v. Perplexity

Figure by Gemini. One of the many sites of conflict over AI use on the Internet is about the use of "agentic" Web browsers: those that incorporate AI features where the user can give the AI instructions and then let it interact with the site independently. For example, you might ask your browser to book travel and it would then go to travel sites, look at the various flights, and eventually buy tickets. Because these features are integrated with the browser, the AI agent does all of this work acting as you and interacting with the site using the same UI mechanisms you would (links, buttons, form fields, etc.). This means that the site doesn't need to provide any AI-specific affordances because the browser can just use the existing site; it also means that the user can use AI on the site whether the site wants them to or not. For various reasons, many sites aren't happy about this, with probably the highest profile case being Amazon.com Services LLC v. Perplexity AI, Inc., in which…