Violations & cases
Case lifecycle
Breach periods from opening to cure or closure: what opens one, what extends it, the strict rule for what cures it, and how recurrence is counted.
Last revised
A breach period is one continuous stretch of apparent non-compliance inside a case: from the first below-policy observation a person confirmed, to the moment the product positively observed the price back at policy — or a person ended it. A case has at most one open period at a time, and a closed period is never reopened.
Opening and extending
- A confirmed candidate opens a period if the case has none open, or attaches to the open one if it has. Nothing else opens a period: the monitor worker generates candidates and opens no cases.
- Every later observation of the same seller on the same product attaches to the open period — below-policy ones, which extend it, and compliant ones, which count toward its cure. Both are kept.
- The period’s running figures — latest price, latest MAP, latest gap, observation count — move only forward. An out-of-order replay of an older observation cannot overwrite a newer price.
- First observed is the observation’s own instant, a fact about the seller. Confirmed at is when a person agreed, a fact about your brand. Both are recorded.
What cures a period
A period closes as cured when a fresh, sufficiently covered observation of the same seller on the same product shows a price at or above the applicable policy — enough times, far enough apart. Nothing else cures. Every other input produces a named reason on the case page.
| Setting | Default | What it controls |
|---|---|---|
| Consecutive compliant observations | 2 | How many compliant observations in a row are needed. One reading can be a repricer flicker or a Buy Box rotation. |
| Minimum span | 12 hours | How far apart the first and last of them must be, so they are independent evidence. |
| Freshness | 72 hours | How old an observation may be and still count as evidence about the price now. |
These are the workspace defaults; there is no screen to change them in this release. The kind of evidence is not configurable at all — no setting turns any of these into a cure:
| Reason shown | Situation |
|---|---|
| No qualifying observation | This seller has not been observed on this product since the period opened. |
| Coverage not sufficient | The observation did not cover the full offer list. Partial coverage never proves a cure. |
| Price not observable | Hidden, unavailable, ambiguous or missing. A hidden price is not a raised price. |
| Evaluation indeterminate | The evaluation could not conclude, or matched no policy. Not applicable is not compliance. |
| Still below policy | The price is still under the floor. |
| Insufficient compliant observations | Compliant, but not enough of them yet. |
| Span too short | Too close together to be independent evidence. |
| Evidence stale | Older than the freshness requirement. |
Silence
An observation that neither supports a cure nor is below policy — a hidden price, a failed evaluation, a partially covered scan — neither resets the compliant run nor extends it. A below-policy observation resets it: a seller who complied twice and dropped again starts over.
The other closures
| Outcome | Recorded as | When |
|---|---|---|
| Cured | Cured | Cure detection, on evidence. A fact about the seller. |
| Closed | Closed | The product was archived, or a person closed the case. A fact about your brand — never shown as the seller correcting themselves. |
Recurrence
After a period closes, a later confirmed candidate opens a new period on the same case, numbered in sequence — period 3 is the third breach. Recurrence is derived from the chain, never stored: the number of periods, the number beyond the first, the hours between the previous closure and the latest opening, and whether one is running now. Across a seller’s cases the recurrence count sums periods beyond the first per case, so three separate first offenses on three products count as zero recurrences and one product relapsed twice counts as two.
When the policy changes mid-period
A material MAP change while a period is open does not close it. It records policy version changed on the timeline, blocks external sending until a fresh observation has been evaluated under the new version, and requires renewed approval for the next notice. See Policy versions.