Evidence
Screenshots and captured files
What MapProtector does and does not capture from a listing page, why the canonical record is the primary evidence, and how to treat screenshots you take yourself.
Last revised
MapProtector’s evidence is built from the records it holds — the observation, the evaluation and the policy version — rather than from a browser rendering of the Amazon page. This page says plainly what that means, so nobody in your program presents a package as something it is not.
What is captured
| Mechanism | What it establishes | In this release |
|---|---|---|
| Canonical record | What was observed, when, from which source, under which policy, and who confirmed it. It is not a picture of the listing page. | Every package. |
| Public page screenshot | The visual presentation of the listing at the moment of capture. | Not captured. MapProtector does not run a browser against Amazon. |
| Public page HTML | The page’s served content, not its appearance. | Not captured. |
| File attached by a user | What that user provided and when. MapProtector did not observe it. | Attached from the package page, PNG, JPEG or PDF, up to 20 MB. Stored and hashed, labeled as a user-provided file, and never scanned for malware in this environment — see below. |
Why there is no automated screenshot
A screenshot of a marketplace page obtained by working around the marketplace’s access controls — solving challenges, rotating proxies, farming accounts, evading fingerprinting — is evidence of a term-of-service breach by the party presenting it, which is worse than no evidence. MapProtector does none of those things, in any configuration, and reads offers only through the Selling Partner API authorization you granted. If a permitted public-page capture path is adopted later, it will appear as a labeled mechanism beside the canonical record, never in place of it.
What the canonical record is good for
- It names the seller by the marketplace’s own identifier and the storefront name at the time.
- It carries the exact price, currency, condition, fulfillment and Buy Box state the source reported, with the timestamp and the coverage.
- It carries the policy version and the rule that judged the price, so the comparison is reproducible.
- It is hashed and sealed, so a party you hand it to can check it has not changed. See Hash verification.
Screenshots you take yourself
Many programs take their own screenshots of a listing while a case is open. Nothing stops you, and they are often persuasive in a conversation with a seller. You can attach one to the package: open the package under Compliance › Evidence, and under Assets choose Attach a file (Compliance Manager and above, on a plan that includes manual evidence; a sealed package accepts nothing more). Record the date, the URL and who took it in the note.
An attached file is stored with the package, hashed, and labeled as a file a user provided in the package header and inside the manifest. It is part of what sealing fixes. It is not MapProtector’s observation, and a notice generated by MapProtector cites the package’s canonical record, not your screenshot.
Retrieving an attached file
MapProtector does not scan uploaded files for malware in this environment, and it says so rather than pretending otherwise. An attached file therefore comes back only as an unscanned file, to a member of your organization with the Legal Reviewer or Analyst role or above, after that person ticks an acknowledgement that it has not been scanned. A Viewer can see that the file is there and cannot retrieve it. It is served as a download, never displayed in the browser, and every retrieval is recorded with the fact that the file was unscanned. The acknowledgement does not make the file safe; it records that the person retrieving it knew it had not been examined. The system-generated manifest needs no acknowledgement.