[andreybaskov]

Originally posted this in another thread, but very curious what others think.

Can I ask my partner to buy a product on Amazon?

Can I ask my personal assistant to buy a product on Amazon?

Can I hire a contractor to buy products on Amazon?

Can I communicate with a contractor via API to direct them what products to buy?

What if there is no human on the other end and its an LLM?

Same issue with LinkedIn. I know execs who have assistants running their socials. Is this legal?

Like, where do we draw the line? In the future, would the only way to shop on Amazon be with approved VR goggles that scan your retina to verify you are a human?

[JumpCrisscross]

> where do we draw the line?

Perplexify has shown itself to be a bad actor [1][2][3], and possibly incompetent, too [4].

We need to draw a line, eventually. But it’s far from urgent. And I don’t think Perplexity should be the one deciding.

[1] https://blog.cloudflare.com/perplexity-is-using-stealth-unde...

[2] https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/perplexity-ai-loses...

[3] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/10/reddit-sues-to-b...

[4] https://brave.com/blog/comet-prompt-injection/

[paxys]

The law has nothing to do with it. Amazon is a private company and can make rules about who can or can't place orders on its website. When you create an account you agree to their ToS.

[andreybaskov]

Interesting. Amazon ToS actually has a section about agents - https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=...

And they even provide a definition of what an Agent is:

"Agent” means any software or service that takes autonomous or semi-autonomous action on behalf of, or at the instruction of, any person or entity.

Though to me it raises even more questions. What is a software that takes "autonomous" action on my behalf. Is curl "autonomous"?

[paxys]

"autonomous or semi-autonomous" is the key phrase. If you manually invoke a curl command then no, it isn't an agent. If you write code that itself determines when and how to invoke that command then it is.

[anon84873628]

Am I not manually instructing the agent to buy a certain product?

What if I set up a cron job to buy a certain product every month - is that not autonomous? What if it is first querying my live toilet paper sticks to make the decision?

[andreybaskov]

Exactly. It's software - `curl` or LLM. It's a function that accepts input and produces output. One is much more sophisticated that the other, but it's made out of the same machine instructions, there is no magic.

What's the criteria that makes one function "autonomous" and the other one "manual"? I feel it really boils down to this.

[afandian]

> Is curl "autonomous"?

Only when you supply -L

[kelnos]

I don't think GP meant "legal" in the literal sense. Regardless, the post's meaning is still the same if you replace "Is this legal?" with "Does this conform to Amazon's ToS?", so please read it charitably and avoid being pedantic about this sort of thing.

[thrill]

Legal matters are all about pedantry.

[simonw]

Can I use Amazon Mechanical Turk to place orders for myself on Amazon?

[whatever1]

No.

That is why you have personal credentials to log in to Amazon. If you want to have delegating capabilities you can open an Amazon business account.

[andreybaskov]

Me and my wife share the same Amazon account. Should I open a business account to do grocery shopping?

[yalok]

Amazon support family sharing for the same home address - 2 adults and 4 children I think can share the same Prime

My wife and I used to share 1 account, but then I wanted to buy her a gift that had to be a surprise - so had to create a new account and add it as part of the family to the original one…. Then kids grew up and wanted to make small orders themselves, and I didn’t want them to see our order history…

[andreybaskov]

I know its there. But we _prefer_ to have a single account to simplify tracking and picking up packages. I'm curious if from their point of view (or their ToS) I'm even allowed to share my credentials with anyone else.

1Password shared vaults are there for a reason - people share credentials all the time, business or personal.

[whatever1]

She should not. You should create an Amazon family and enroll her as a member.

This way Amazon can keep track of your separate buyer profiles.

[kelnos]

Would Amazon be ok with me opening a business account, creating credentials for a Perplexity assistant, and having it buy products?

Based on this article, I'd think not?

[whatever1]

Even if it was not AI it would not be allowed. You are effectively creating dummy accounts with bots.

Even the SEC would be against it, as it would inflate the user base of Amazon.