Is Scraping Amazon Legal?
Scraping Amazon's public product pages is not a crime in itself in the US, the EU or the UK, but Amazon does not allow it: its Conditions of Use, last updated August 14, 2026, exclude "any use of data mining, robots, or similar data gathering and extraction tools" from your license to use the site. So the main risks are contract claims, blocked IPs and closed accounts, and they grow if you scrape logged in, copy descriptions, images or reviews wholesale, or run an AI agent that hides what it is. ProxyField sells residential proxies for lawful public-data work from $1.95/GB; start with the Easy Trial: 1 GB for $2.95.
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| What you collect from Amazon | Legal risk | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Public prices, ratings, ranks, availability (logged out) | Lower | Facts are not protected by copyright; US courts have read the CFAA narrowly for public pages |
| Product descriptions and images copied to your own site | Higher | Copyright in the text and photos |
| Reviews with reviewer names | Higher | Copyright in the review text; personal data under the GDPR in Europe |
| Anything while logged in to a buyer or seller account | Higher | You accepted the Conditions of Use; Amazon can act on the account |
| An AI agent shopping or browsing undisclosed | Highest | Amazon's August 2026 Agent Terms; the 2026 injunction against an AI shopping agent |
On this page 8 sections
Does Amazon allow web scraping?
No. Amazon's Conditions of Use grant "a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, non-sublicensable license to access and make personal and non-commercial use of the Amazon Services". The license, in Amazon's words, does not include "any collection and use of any product listings, descriptions, or prices" or "any use of data mining, robots, or similar data gathering and extraction tools". The page shows "Last updated: August 14, 2026".
Amazon's robots.txt says the same to crawlers. On October 23, 2026, amazon.com/robots.txt disallowed cart, sign-in, account and similar paths for all user agents, and blocked a long list of named bots from the whole site, among them GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, CCBot, Google-Extended and the default user agent of the Scrapy framework. robots.txt is not a law (RFC 9309 says its rules "are not a form of access authorization"), but it records what Amazon asks of automated clients.
Amazon's official routes are its APIs: product data for affiliates through the Creators API, which replaces the Product Advertising API 5.0 (Amazon's deprecation notice), and the Selling Partner API for sellers' own data. The Amazon scraper API page compares the options.
Sources Amazon Conditions of Use; amazon.com/robots.txt; RFC 9309; Amazon, Product Advertising API 5.0 deprecation notice.
Amazon's 2026 Agent Terms and the AI shopping agent case
In 2026 Amazon added a section on AI agents to the Conditions of Use and won a court order against one.
The Agent Terms. An "Agent" is "any software or service that takes autonomous or semi-autonomous action on behalf of, or at the instruction of, any person or entity". Agents must identify themselves in every HTTP request with "Agent/[agent name]" in the user agent string, must not conceal that they are agents "by (a) mimicking the speed or pattern of human keystrokes, page navigation, or other interactions or (b) completing or circumventing CAPTCHAs", must answer truthfully when asked whether they are human, and must stop when Amazon asks them to (Conditions of Use, "Agents").
Amazon v. Perplexity. Amazon sued Perplexity on November 4, 2025, over the shopping agent in Perplexity's Comet browser. On March 9, 2026, Judge Maxine M. Chesney granted Amazon's motion for preliminary injunctive relief, and Perplexity appealed to the Ninth Circuit on March 10 (No. 26-1444); the appeal was argued on June 11, 2026, and the appeal docket showed no decision when we read it on October 23, 2026 (docket, N.D. Cal. No. 3:25-cv-09514). Other cases are tracked in web scraping legal news.
For scrapers, the lesson is that a tool acting on behalf of a logged-in customer is now governed by explicit terms, and a court has been willing to enforce them early.
Is scraping Amazon illegal? US, EU and UK law
Collecting public Amazon pages while logged out is unlikely to be a crime; the realistic claims are contract, copyright and, in Europe, the database right and data protection.
US. Since Van Buren v. United States (2021), the federal anti-hacking law turns on entering areas of a computer that are off limits to you, and the Ninth Circuit applied that to public pages in hiQ v. LinkedIn (2022). Contract is the bigger risk: once you sign in, you have accepted the Conditions of Use, and hiQ itself later lost on contract. Prices, ratings and ranks are facts, which the US Copyright Office says copyright does not protect; descriptions, photos and reviews are expression.
EU and UK. Amazon's European stores, such as amazon.de or amazon.co.uk, have their own terms. The Database Directive and the UK database right protect against taking a substantial part of a database, so tracking your own product set is lower risk than copying a whole category. Reviewer names and profiles are personal data under the GDPR. Details: web scraping law in the UK and EU.
Sources Van Buren; hiQ v. LinkedIn; US Copyright Office FAQ; Directive 96/9/EC; GDPR.
What you can scrape from Amazon, by data type
| Data | Copyright | Personal data | Practical note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price, list price, coupon | No (facts) | No | The most common lawful use: price monitoring |
| Rating, review count, Best Sellers Rank | No (facts) | No | Track a defined product set |
| Title, bullet points, description | Possibly | No | Analyze, do not republish |
| Product images | Yes | No | Do not reuse without a license |
| Review text | Yes | Reviewer names and profiles | Aggregate sentiment; drop names in Europe |
| Seller name and storefront data | Usually not | Sole traders can be personal data | Keep only what you need |
Amazon sellers: scraping and your seller account
If you sell on Amazon, scraping from the IP or browser profile you use for Seller Central ties the activity to your account. Amazon's terms let it restrict or close accounts at its discretion, so keep monitoring tools separate from the account you sell with, and never use a seller login to collect data. Managing several marketplace accounts with one IP per account, within Amazon's seller policies, is a lawful use of proxies; see Amazon proxies.
Where ProxyField stands
ProxyField's acceptable use policy allows "collecting public web data, price and SEO monitoring, ... market research, managing your own or your clients' social media and marketplace accounts (one IP per account)" and forbids accessing "data behind logins you are not entitled to" and infringing intellectual property. For the infrastructure, see Amazon proxies and the Amazon scraper API, billed on successful results only.
Amazon's terms and ProxyField's policy: public pages only, and follow the site's terms
Is Scraping Amazon Legal? FAQ
Is it legal to scrape Amazon?
ProxyField sells its 412M+ residential IPs for public-data work, and as of October 2026 collecting Amazon's public prices and product facts while logged out is not a crime in itself, but Amazon's Conditions of Use forbid data mining and robots. That makes it mainly a contract and account risk rather than a criminal one. The risk grows if you scrape logged in, republish descriptions, images or reviews, or run an undisclosed AI agent.
Does Amazon allow web scraping?
No. The license in Amazon's Conditions of Use excludes "any collection and use of any product listings, descriptions, or prices" and "any use of data mining, robots, or similar data gathering and extraction tools". Amazon offers APIs instead: the Creators API for affiliates and the Selling Partner API for sellers.
What is Amazon's web scraping policy?
Amazon has no separate scraping policy; the rules are in its Conditions of Use and robots.txt. The Conditions of Use exclude robots and data mining from your license and, since August 2026, require AI agents to identify themselves; robots.txt disallows cart, sign-in and account paths for everyone and blocks named bots such as GPTBot and Scrapy's default user agent from the whole site.
Is it legal to scrape Amazon product data for price comparison?
Reading public prices for comparison is low legal risk, because prices are facts and copyright does not protect facts; the breach is of Amazon's terms, which matters most if you are logged in. In the EU and UK, keep to the products you compare rather than copying a whole category, to stay clear of the database right.
Is it legal to scrape Amazon reviews?
Collecting review counts and ratings is low risk; copying review text is riskier, because each review is the reviewer's expression and, in Europe, names and profiles are personal data under the GDPR. Analyze reviews in aggregate and drop reviewer identities unless you have a lawful basis to keep them.
Does Amazon's robots.txt allow web scraping?
Only partly, and only for well-behaved crawlers: on October 23, 2026, it disallowed cart, sign-in, account and many other paths for all user agents and blocked dozens of named bots, including AI crawlers and Scrapy's default user agent, from the whole site. robots.txt is a request, not an authorization; Amazon's Conditions of Use still forbid robots and data mining.
Can scraping put an Amazon seller account at risk?
Yes. If your scraping is linked to the IP, browser profile or login you use for Seller Central, Amazon can act against the account under its terms. Keep monitoring tools separate from the account you sell with and never scrape through a seller login.
Where is the legal line on Amazon scraping?
The line runs between reading public facts while logged out, which is low risk, and three riskier acts: scraping while logged in, which binds you to the Conditions of Use; republishing descriptions, images or reviews, which raises copyright; and getting past Amazon's blocks or agent rules, which a court enforced against an AI shopping agent in March 2026.
Is Amazon scraping legal in 2026?
The law did not change in 2026, but Amazon's position hardened: its Conditions of Use, updated August 14, 2026, add Agent Terms that require AI agents to identify themselves and not complete CAPTCHAs, and a federal court granted Amazon a preliminary injunction against Perplexity's shopping agent on March 9, 2026. Logged-out collection of public facts carries the same low criminal risk as before.
Is scraping Amazon legal for building a search tool?
A tool that shows Amazon prices and links back is lower risk than one that rebuilds Amazon's catalog with its descriptions and images. Amazon's own route for this is the Creators API under its affiliate terms; scraping instead breaks the Conditions of Use, and copying content raises copyright and, in Europe, database-right claims.
Sources
- Amazon Conditions of Use (last updated August 14, 2026)
- amazon.com/robots.txt
- Amazon, Product Advertising API 5.0 deprecation notice
- Amazon.com Services v. Perplexity AI, N.D. Cal. No. 3:25-cv-09514, docket
- RFC 9309, Robots Exclusion Protocol
- Van Buren v. United States (2021)
- hiQ Labs v. LinkedIn, 9th Cir. (2022)
- US Copyright Office, general FAQ
- Database Directive 96/9/EC
- GDPR, Regulation (EU) 2016/679
This is not legal advice. Laws, court decisions and Amazon's terms change, and the primary sources linked on this page are the authority.
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