As reported by Digiday, Amazon has taken a firm step to protect its e-commerce data by expanding the list of AI-related crawlers it disallows in its publicly available robots.txt file. The move adds Meta, Google, Huawei, Mistral, and other AI platforms to the growing list of blocked entities. The changes were first noted by independent analyst Juozas Kaziukėnas.
Kaziukėnas commented on LinkedIn that Amazon is trying to prevent AI companies from training their models using Amazon’s data. He acknowledged that much of this data has likely already been scraped, but emphasized that Amazon is now intent on controlling access moving forward.
This development builds on earlier restrictions that targeted crawlers from Anthropic’s Claude, Perplexity, and Google’s Project Mariner. Such uses of robots.txt are advisory rather than enforceable rules, but they serve as important signals to well-behaved crawlers.
Why This Matters for Amazon
For Amazon, the issue goes beyond data privacy. The company’s online marketplace forms the foundation of a massive advertising business valued at $56 billion. Allowing third-party AI tools to surface Amazon products independently could undercut both site traffic and ad revenue.
This decision reflects Amazon’s broader strategy to keep AI-powered shopping experiences in-house. The company has launched its own chatbot, Rufus, and is testing a “buy-for-me” feature that enables shopping across third-party websites on behalf of users.
How Other Platforms Compare
Amazon’s approach contrasts with Shopify’s more balanced stance. Shopify updated its own policies so that “buy-for-me” agents are required to include human verification steps and use Shopify’s built-in checkout for purchases. This approach protects merchant sites while still enabling AI integration.
At present, Amazon is one of the only large retailers taking such explicit action against AI scraping. Major platforms like Walmart and eBay have not implemented similar blocks according to an analysis by Modern Retail.
The Limitations of the Move
While the robots.txt file is an established method to discourage unwanted crawling, it depends on voluntary compliance by AI tools. Many AI agents ignore these rules, meaning Amazon’s efforts may offer limited protection without technical enforcement.
Final Thoughts
Amazon’s expanded robots.txt restrictions mark a clear shift in how major retailers handle data access in the AI era. As AI agents increasingly infiltrate shopping behaviors, retailers are balancing openness with control to protect traffic, revenue, and their competitive edge.
