Agentic Browsers Could Ruin the Open Internet

Last week, Amazon published a letter on its company news page stating that it had sent a cease-and-desist letter to the AI company Perplexity. In the letter, Amazon accused Perplexity of violating its terms of service by enabling users to shop its site via Perplexity’s AI browser, Comet.

Amazon claimed that, as a third-party application, it needs to “respect service provider decisions” and that it provides a “degraded shopping and customer service experience.”

Perplexity, for its part, said it was confused by the decision. It said Amazon should love that people are buying more. It also added that it’s as if “you went to a store and the store only allowed you to hire a personal shopper who worked for the store.”

It is unclear what, if any, changes have occurred since this back-and-forth. No lawsuits have been filed, at least not as of this writing. 

As agentic browsers become more common, fights like this are going to rise. However, there’s nothing new about the tension between websites and web browsers. That is a tale as old as the internet. 

What is different this time is that the same companies are often on both sides.

A History of Warfare

In many ways, this battle goes back to the mid-to-late 1990s. Then the web hosting site Tripod.com introduced the pop-up ad. To be clear, this wasn’t like the pop-ups you see today; it was an ad that opened up in a new (tiny) window and had to be closed.

This resulted in a race to the bottom. Pop-ups began opening other pop-ups; some featured fake close buttons, and some would just loop indefinitely. Users started to install “pop-up blockers” to prevent those windows from opening. However, sites began to find quick ways to get around that, often embedding the pop-ups in different ways.

The external pop-up didn’t really go away until the major browsers started implementing protection in the early 2000s. Now, most pop-ups you see are internal elements on a webpage, not a new window. 

But even as external pop-ups were dying, another fight was kicking off. Adblock Plus was first released in 2006. Though there had been other ad blockers before it, this really kicked off the mass adoption of ad blockers.

This fight is ongoing 20 years later. Many sites have added tools to block access for those who block ads. However, one of the most aggressive has been YouTube, which has been playing cat-and-mouse with ad blockers for years. 

Google, which owns YouTube, has even implemented a new extension system in Chrome that, in part, makes ad blocking more difficult. 

Both of these stories are tales of sites having an intended way they want to be viewed, and browsers then trying to find ways to bypass unwanted elements of that experience. 

While this has been the case for roughly 30 years, AI could push this tension to a new level.

A Tipping Point

One thing has remained largely true over the past 30 years. Outside of the browsers blocking pop-ups, the browsers themselves have mainly remained neutral.

Chrome, Safari, Edge/IE, etc., have, for the most part, tried to display web pages as faithfully as possible. If users wanted to block ads or alter web pages, they needed to either add extensions, install new software or use a more niche browser.

With the rise of agentic browsers, such as Comet, Atlas, Dia, etc., these browsers are designed, out of the box, to drastically change the way users interact with web pages. 

This impacts every area of accessing the web. From finding information and making purchases to using social media, these browsers don’t just remove unwanted elements from the user experience; they change it completely.

Previously, this tension was between webmasters (large and small) and users/small companies. However, now the call is coming from inside the house.

Amazon is the largest shopping site and is pushing back against Perplexity, but it has its own AI agent, which does similar things to other websites. Google may be the largest search engine and video platform, but it’s also baking its own agentic elements into Chrome. 

The same sites and companies that fought tooth and nail against unwanted modifications are now among the companies creating AI agents that would modify other sites on the internet.

Though smaller websites are caught in the middle, this also represents a problem for users of agentic browsers. What happens if Amazon successfully bullies or blocks other AI gents from accessing its site? Will users need a different AI agent to access Amazon? What about social media? What about Google services?

The problem is that the internet is very heavily siloed right now. For most people, “The Internet” is just a handful of websites or apps. However, we’ve always been able to access those sites and services with the same browser. 

Now, thanks to the AI wars, those wanting to use agentic browsers may find themselves needing multiple browsers to complete the same tasks.

Facebook, Amazon and Google have all shown they aren’t afraid to leverage their dominance to push their AI systems. This is going to create more tension, like the Perplexity/Amazon scrape, as companies try to put more barriers around their walled gardens.

Bottom Line

The tension between web users and websites is nothing new. Websites have created an intended experience, and users have sought to alter that experience to their liking, even when it harms the original creators.

But this warning shot over agentic browsers risks taking that fight to a new level. We have a heavily siloed internet where the companies controlling those silos are creating their own AI systems and agentic browsers. That gives them incredible authority to determine who comes in and who comes out.

To be clear, we’ve seen a lot of this already on mobile devices. Reddit famously shuttered Apollo for providing an ad-free experience. However, they aren’t alone. Facebook, Google, Amazon, etc., all push you to use their apps not only for the data they can harvest, but to control the user experience.

Now, with agentic browsers, something like this may be coming to the desktop. If you want to use an AI browser, you may find it difficult to cross borders on the internet. While it’s not a major concern yet, the Amazon letter is a warning shot.

Ultimately, my concern is that, as the fight for AI dominance heats up, the internet itself may become a victim of the war. The battle lines are being drawn, and what little is left of the truly open internet may be the first sacrifice.