AI Shopping Agents and Computer Access Liability After Amazon v. Perplexity

David W. Tollen, Founder | Sycamore Legal, P.C.

David W. Tollen advises on the contracts that govern technology, with a practice centered on artificial intelligence agreements, SaaS, and other cloud computing arrangements. He founded Tech Contracts Academy LLC, a professional training company, and Sycamore Legal, P.C., a San Francisco Bay Area boutique law firm, both devoted to technology contracts. He wrote The Tech Contracts Handbook, a perennial bestseller from the American Bar Association that is used in law school classrooms, and he serves as an expert witness on intellectual property and information technology disputes.

• Education & Credentials

Mr. Tollen earned his JD cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1993, an Ll.M. from Queens’ College at Cambridge University in 1994, and a BA from U.C. Berkeley in 1990 with highest distinction in general scholarship. He is admitted to the State Bar of California.

• Recognition & Leadership

The Tech Contracts Handbook, now in its third edition from ABA Publishing, is consistently a bestseller for the ABA’s Intellectual Property Section and appeared in a Mandarin translation in 2025. He also authored The Tech Indemnities Pocket Guide and co-authored the computer technology chapter of Trade Secrets Practice in California for CEB. His educational novels, The Jericho River and Secrets of Hominea, won honors at the Next Generation Indie Book Awards, the London Book Festival, and the Independent Press Award, and he sits on the Board of Advisors of World History Encyclopedia.

• Professional Involvement

Mr. Tollen has taught information technology contract drafting and negotiation at UC Berkeley Law School, lecturing to JD and Ll.M. candidates most recently in spring 2026. He has belonged to the American Bar Association’s IP Law Section since 2010 and to World Commerce & Contracting since 2017, and he served on the board of the San Francisco Intellectual Property Law Association from 2009 to 2015.

• Experience

Mr. Tollen speaks frequently on artificial intelligence contracting, including PLI’s Advanced Licensing Agreements programs on AI intellectual property and licensing issues in 2025 and 2026, webinars on redlining AI vendor agreements and on AI in procurement, and a 2025 technology summit keynote on legal careers in the age of AI. His earlier roles include General Counsel of a publicly traded software company and Vice President of Business Development for a technology startup, and he began his legal career at Morrison & Foerster. His clients have ranged from Silicon Valley startups to globally influential companies.

SESSION 1 – Building Plaintiff-Side Claims Around Platform AI Agent Bans and Account Terminations |2:30pm – 3:30pm

This session examines how plaintiff-side attorneys can build and support legal claims when AI shopping agents are banned or accounts are terminated by major platforms, with Amazon v. Perplexity (N.D. Cal., Judge Chesney, 2026) as the anchor case. Attorneys will analyze the CFAA authorization framework, statelaw tort and contract claims, and emerging antitrust theories targeting platforms that block third-party agents while operating proprietary alternatives. Attendees will leave with a working understanding of claim selection, evidentiary preservation, damages quantification, and the unsettled legal questions that will be shaped by the pending Ninth Circuit appeal.

BREAK | 3:30pm – 3:40pm

SESSION 2 – Drafting Defensible AI Agent Terms of Service and Managing Incident Response for Platforms | 3:40pm – 4:40pm

This session equips platform counsel with the drafting frameworks and incident response protocols needed to defend against unauthorized AI agent access in the wake of Amazon v. Perplexity. Attorneys will examine  how Amazon’s layered ToS language, technical countermeasures, and escalation documentation secured a preliminary injunction under the CFAA and California’s CDAFA, and learn how to replicate that evidentiary foundation. Attendees will leave with actionable clause-level guidance for automated-access definitions, delegation authority limitations, agent identification requirements, and advertising integrity provisions, plus a step-by-step incident response playbook calibrated to current CFAA doctrine.