Amazon has cut off Meta’s Muse AI agent from shopping on Amazon.com, turning a dispute over authorization, credentials, and control of the checkout journey into the latest test for consumer agents.
Amazon’s block began appearing to Muse users on Sunday, September 20, with a notice saying that “continued access by an unauthorized AI agent violates Amazon’s Conditions of Use,” The Verge reported, citing GeekWire. Amazon told GeekWire that Meta had not notified it that Muse would access the store or received authorization to do so.
Amazon also raised privacy and security concerns, saying Muse does not identify itself while browsing and appears to capture customer credentials. The retailer said the agent can reach account information, including order history, according to The Register. Amazon has asked Meta to remove the marketplace from Muse.
Meta says Muse cannot see a user’s passwords or payment details. The company says those credentials are kept in secure storage and supplied for authentication without exposing them to the model, Business Insider reported. Meta did not immediately respond to Business Insider’s request for comment.
The disagreement also reaches beyond account security. Business Insider reported that Amazon wants outside agents to be transparent, let retailers opt out, and provide a mutual exchange of value. Amazon’s conditions of use do not explicitly mention AI shopping assistants, but they exclude data mining, robots, and similar data-gathering tools, the outlet said.
Muse launched in the United States on September 8 as a general-purpose agent that can handle multistep tasks across shopping, payments, email, and calendars. When a service lacks a public API, Meta says Muse can operate it through a browser, a design that puts the agent directly inside retailers’ existing customer journeys.
Amazon has been contesting that model. The retailer sued Perplexity over shopping activity through its Comet browser and has moved to restrict other outside agents, while operating its own shopping tools. The Muse block leaves a practical question for the agent era: whether an assistant can act for a customer on a site that has not agreed to let it in.