TLDR: Perplexity agents allegedly ignored Amazon's robots.txt

robots.txt is a suggestion, not a rule. It's a service to crawlers to help them avoid wasting time. Using robots.txt as a security measure is like trying to stop a foreign invader with a "road closed" sign.

Edit: this is obviously assuming they literally meant robots.txt, but from a qyick skim of the site, it doesn't look like that was mentioned at least. I guess you meant it metaphorically :P

> robots.txt is a service to crawlers to help them avoid wasting time

I doubt anyone edits robots.txt with a warm fuzzy feeling about how much they are helping crawlers be efficient.

Well that's what they're doing.

Why should they not? So does my browser when I ask it to open a website.