Liat Ben-Zur to Fortune on control of agent access
Former Microsoft corporate vice president, in an interview with Fortune
“This is bigger than a dispute over bot detection or website access. We are moving toward a world where agents will increasingly act as our representatives online. The companies that control the rules of access will have enormous influence over whether those agents actually work for the consumer.”
Source and context
Reporting
About this source
Fortune report on Muse's rise to the top of the U.S. iOS free app chart, Amazon's block and statement, Meta's Shopify partnership, and reactions from Nikesh Arora on X and Liat Ben-Zur in an interview.
Archived copy (opens in a new tab)Before the quotation
Amazon had blocked Meta's Muse agent from its store, citing unauthorized access, and Meta had disputed Amazon's description of Muse's credential handling.
After the quotation
Amazon operates its own shopping agent, Buy for Me, and has said brands can opt out of it; critics note that outside agents get no equivalent path on Amazon.
How this statement is classified
Case context: Should Amazon be allowed to block Meta's Muse agent from shopping on its site?
The label describes this statement’s response within the context above.
Why this label?
Ben-Zur identifies what is at stake in Amazon's decision and warns about gatekeeping power, but does not expressly say the block is right or wrong.
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Should Amazon be allowed to block Meta's Muse agent from shopping on its site?
Explore the case context, sources and public responses.
More from this case
Read the full case“It is only a matter of time before there is an Apple and Google version of Muse and possibly TikTok, in addition to the frontier LLM agents. Every app that is a services, marketplace or commerce app will need to existentially decide to open [Application Programming Interfaces] for consumer agents to interact. Smaller players have no choice. Either the consumer benefits or distribution aggregators will demand a higher transaction fare.”Read statement
Meta Platforms
“Muse "has no visibility into people's passwords or payment methods," and credentials a user shares "go into secure storage, so Muse can use them without seeing them, including passwords a person types into the browser themselves."”Read statement
Amazon
“We think it's fairly straightforward that third-party applications that offer to make purchases on behalf of customers from other businesses should operate openly and respect service provider decisions about whether or not to participate.”Read statement