MAP Compliance Operations Glossary

A MAP program runs on a small vocabulary, and most of its avoidable arguments come from two words being used for one thing or one word for two. This glossary defines the terms as an operations team uses them, in the groups the work happens in, with the distinctions called out where they are load-bearing. It is the vocabulary MapProtector's screens and documentation use; a program on other tooling can adopt it as is.

Policy

MAP (minimum advertised price). The lowest price at which a reseller may advertise a product under the brand's policy. Not the selling price. Not a ceiling.

MSRP (manufacturer's suggested retail price). The price the brand suggests a retailer sell at. A recommendation, not a floor, and not monitored. See MAP vs MSRP.

MAP policy. The brand's statement of the floor for a scope — a brand, a product group or a product, on a marketplace, for a condition — from a date, with tolerance and treatment rules. In a monitoring tool it is the reference every measurement is made against.

Policy version. One statement of what the floor is, effective from an instant, immutable once written. A policy is a timeline of versions; a change is an appended version, never an edit. Every measurement records the version it used.

Effective MAP / the floor. The floor that applied at the instant of an observation, after the policy version in force, any approved promotion, and the tolerance.

Tolerance. How far below the floor a price may be before it is treated as below policy: none, a fixed amount, or a percentage.

Treatment rules. How shipping, coupons, cart-only prices and out-of-stock offers participate in the comparison.

Promotion. An approved, bounded lowering of the floor for a scope between two instants. It reverts by itself at its end. See Promotions.

Exception. An effective-dated instruction that a scope is not judged against the policy (exempt) or is judged but never enforced (monitor only). It never erases an observation. See Exceptions.

Monitoring

Scan. One read of every offer on one monitored listing at one instant, through the brand's Amazon authorization.

Cadence. How many times a day each listing is scanned.

Observation. One offer, seen by one scan: seller, price and currency, condition, fulfillment, Buy Box, instant, coverage. A fact, written once, never edited.

Observed price. The advertised price as the source reported it. Distinct from the floor it is measured against and from any selling price.

Coverage. How much of a listing a scan could see: sufficient, partial, insufficient or unknown. Decides what an absence means; never changes what was seen.

Evaluation. The outcome of measuring an observation against the effective floor: compliant, below policy, indeterminate, not applicable, not evaluated, or price not shown. The last four are not compliant.

Below policy. An observed price under the effective floor after tolerance and treatment rules. A measurement. Not, by itself, a violation in any legal sense.

Indeterminate. The rules could not conclude — shipping required but not shown, a couponed offer routed to review, a cart-only price under the default rule.

Sellers

Seller identity. The marketplace's own seller identifier on a marketplace. The only identity; storefront names are aliases.

Storefront name / alias. The name a seller identity was seen under. A rename keeps the history and adds an alias.

Authorized Network. The list of partners the brand declares — distributors, resellers, its own storefront — with the seller id each sells through. The basis for authorized.

Authorized. The brand recognizes this seller as an authorized reseller. Set by a network match or by a person. A relationship, declared.

Unauthorized. The brand has decided this seller is not authorized, with a reason. A decision, recorded. Never inferred by the tool — and never a statement about the seller's legal position, which the tool does not assess.

Unknown. Observed, matched nothing, not yet classified. A state, not a verdict. Unknown is not unauthorized.

Formerly authorized · Brand internal · Exempt. Further standings a person may record: a relationship that ended; the brand's own storefront; a seller the program deliberately does not act on.

Standing. The current classification of a seller for a brand. Independent of compliance: authorized is not compliant, and below policy is not unauthorized.

Review and cases

Violation candidate. A below-policy observation that passed every eligibility gate and is waiting for a person. A measurement someone is asked to look at; not an accusation.

Eligibility gates. The named reasons a below-policy observation may be held back from review: seller not identified, product not actively monitored, an exception applies, price not read, coverage insufficient, observation stale.

Confirmed below policy. A candidate a person confirmed: the brand's recorded statement that it considers the price below its policy. The strongest thing the tool records about a price.

Dismissed. A candidate a person set aside, with one of a closed list of reasons. The reasons are the program's diagnostic signal.

Case. The persistent relationship between one seller and one product under a policy scope. Not an incident; it persists across periods.

Breach period (episode). One continuous stretch of non-compliance inside a case, from the first confirmed observation to its cure or closure. A case has at most one open period at a time. Closed periods are immutable.

Cure. A period closed because enough fresh, sufficiently covered observations showed the price back at or above the floor. A fact about the seller. Never from silence, a hidden price, a disappearance or a claim.

Closed. A period ended by a person or because the product was archived. A fact about the brand. Cured is not closed.

Recurrence. Periods beyond the first on a case, summed per case across a seller. Three cases of one period each is zero recurrences; one case of three periods is two.

Evidence

Evidence package. A record of what was observed, under which policy version, judged how, and confirmed by whom — assembled from immutable records, fingerprinted, and sealable.

Canonical record. The package's core: MapProtector's own record of what the source reported. It is not a screenshot, and it says so.

Snapshot (in evidence). A value copied into the package at capture and never re-read — the seller's standing, the product title, the storefront name — so the package keeps meaning what it meant.

Sealing. Fixing a package permanently: SHA-256 fingerprints of the manifest and every asset, the instant, the person, the hashing version. Brand Admin only. Irreversible; a correction is a new package that references the old.

Integrity verification. Recomputing the fingerprints and comparing them with the seal, on every read. Reports; repairs nothing.

Superseded. A sealed package that a later package has replaced, both kept visible.

Enforcement

Template. The words of a notice with placeholders. Published versions are immutable; a sent notice points at exactly one.

Sender identity. The From address, display name and reply-to a notice leaves from — the brand's own, verified. Never the vendor's.

Seller contact. A recorded address for a seller, nominated as the recipient. Never inferred from a storefront.

Sequence. The escalation schedule: stages, each with a template, a minimum wait after the previous send, and whether fresh evidence or approval is required. The schedule decides when to ask; a person decides whether to send.

Prepare. Starting the sequence for a breach period and drafting its next stage. Sends nothing.

Notice. A prepared document — subject, body, recipient, sender, cited facts — frozen as a snapshot and hashed.

Eligibility gate (enforcement). The named conditions that block a notice: workflow, measurement, seller, policy, evidence, interlock, sender, holds and sequencing. The whole list is shown; it runs at preparation, approval and sending.

Approval. A Brand Admin's authorization of one send of one snapshot, with a fresh second factor. Lapses if the document, policy, recipient, evidence, case, sender or a hold changes.

Hold. A recorded pause on every notice in a scope — notice, case, seller, brand — for a reason. Not a cancellation.

Sent · Delivered · Delivery unknown. The provider accepted the message; the recipient's server accepted it; the provider did not answer in time. Three states. Sent is not delivered. Delivery unknown is never retried automatically.

Response. What a seller said back, recorded by a person as a claim — claims to be an authorized seller, promises cure, disputes policy. Changes no standing and cures nothing.

Post-enforcement verification. Continued monitoring after a notice until the period cures or a new one opens.

Access

Brand Admin · Compliance Manager · Analyst · Legal Reviewer · Viewer. The five roles, from the one that seals, approves and sends, to the ones that read. See Team roles.

Fresh second factor / step-up. A second-factor code presented within the last fifteen minutes, required before approving, sending, sealing, publishing templates and sequences, configuring the sender, and connecting Amazon.

The four sentences

If a team remembers nothing else from this glossary:

1. An observation is not a confirmed violation in a legal sense — nor even a confirmed candidate until a person says so.
2. Unknown is not unauthorized.
3. Authorized is not compliant.
4. Sent is not delivered, and cured is not closed.