Amazon's popup to users whose Muse agent tried to shop on its platform was carefully addressed: "Continued access by an unauthorized AI agent violates Amazon's Conditions of Use, to which our customers have agreed." The target wasn't Meta. It was the user, reminded of a contract they'd already signed.
The W3C draft published the same week defines agent loyalty running the other direction entirely. An agent "serves its user's interests over its implementer's interests and over the interests of any other party." Two frameworks, both plausible, pointing at different principals.
What agents have actually revealed is that the web's session model always rested on a one-sided arrangement. A logged-in user carried consent from one party and tolerance from the other. Walmart and Shopify chose to accept Muse. Amazon and Kohl's refused. Same agent, same user authorization, different commercial calculations at the receiving end. For anyone building agent infrastructure, the implication is concrete: getting your user's permission is necessary work, but it solves roughly half the access problem.
Amazon's stated conditions for agent access: Must identify itself as a specific agent. Must not disguise itself as human. Must not circumvent access limits. Amazon reserves the right to block at its discretion.
What triggered the block: Muse did not identify itself while browsing. Meta did not notify Amazon in advance. The agent appeared to capture and store customer credentials.
Platforms that accepted Muse: Walmart, Best Buy, Gap, Sephora, and all Shopify merchants agreed to participate.
Amazon's ad revenue context: Over $68 billion last year. An agent shopping on a user's behalf can bypass browsing entirely, along with the sponsored products that browsing surfaces.
Ninth Circuit precedent: In a related case involving Perplexity, the court ruled the user is the party accessing the platform, not the AI company. This limited anti-hacking claims but left contract enforcement intact.
W3C draft status: Group Note Draft, not an adopted standard. Explicitly extends user-agent duties to AI systems performing automated web actions.