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[Change] § 5.6 — Define verified purchases for commission-based pricing #161
Description
What kind of change?
Change a field's type or shape
Which section?
5.6 — Commercial terms
Current text
§ 5.6 — Commercial terms
| `pricing[].cost_method` | Enum | seller-set | CPM, CPC, flat, etc. |Proposed text
Add verified_purchase as an action_type for purchase-based commissions. A verified purchase is a completed, retailer-confirmed purchase that qualifies under the attribution rules agreed by the parties.
When verified_purchase is selected, the agreement MUST identify the evidence required to confirm a purchase, the reporting source whose count controls billing, the agreed attribution rules, and how commissions are calculated and adjusted for cancellations, full or partial returns, fraud, and duplicate reports.
Views, clicks, registrations, and checkout starts MAY be reported as steps in the shopping journey. Only qualifying purchases earn a commission under this pricing model.Why
A viewer discovers a product in a TV show, buys two items, and returns one. The agreement should make clear who gets credit for the sale and how the partial return changes the commission (credit). Reference #38, #146, and #159 there.
Knock-on effects
If adopted alongside #146, add verified_purchase to the documented action_type values and include a § 6 example showing a retailer-confirmed purchase followed by a partial return. The example should show which source controls billing, how credit is assigned, and how the return adjusts the commission. Purchase reporting and reconciliation would take place downstream.
Would this break an implementation already built to this draft?
No — additive or editorial
Alternatives you considered and rejected
We considered using the generic purchase action and describing commission eligibility in free text. That would leave buyers and sellers to interpret what qualifies and how returns affect payment. An explicit verified_purchase value gives both parties a shared definition while allowing them to agree on the attribution and commission terms for each offer.
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KonstantinMirin commentedon Nov 12, 2026
Thanks, @monjerillc. #146 now has the piece you asked for on #80: a
CPAentry MAY nameaction_definition, aDocumentRefto the rules that make an action billable (commit). It pins one version by its digest. Withaction_typepurchase, that covers a verified purchase without a new core term.Three more pieces are already there:
action_sourcecounts aCPAline item, here the retailer that confirms the purchase (§ 5.7, § 5.7.1 — Settlement: who measures, the metric terms, and the terms in force (#93, #95) #147).attribution_windowbounds how long after exposure a purchase counts (§ 5.6, § 5.6.5 to § 5.6.7 — Pricing: cost methods, currency, cancellation, and exclusivity (#94, #98) #146).final_aftersets when a count is final, leaving time for returns (§ 5.7.1).A seller that wants its own name can use an extension term under its domain, such as
seller.example:verified_purchase. A commission paid as a share of the sale isn't a cost method yet. That, and whether the agreement MUST carry these, we'd leave to the working group.Analyzed and generated with the help of Claude, fully reviewed by me.
monjerillc commentedon Nov 12, 2026
Thanks, @KonstantinMirin. The draft’s provisions for defining a billable purchase, identifying who verifies it, and allowing time for returns are helpful. For the working group, we’d propose using the retailer-verified net sale as the basis for commissions calculated as a share of the sale.
In agentic commerce, software can generate an entire sequence of activity that looks like a shopping journey. An agent can open a shoppable placement, follow a product link, add an item to a cart, and even initiate checkout. It can repeat that sequence at scale across many placements without a completed purchase. Several signals can appear to corroborate one another even when they all came from the same automated sequence. If those signals carry payouts, the system creates a financial incentive to manufacture them.
Impressions, clicks, and cart activity can still help explain which content or placement influenced a verified purchase. For settlement, each qualifying sale should be counted once, with transparent rules for sharing credit among the content and distribution partners that contributed. A cancellation or full refund should reverse both the attribution credit and the commission. A partial refund should reduce both to reflect the net sale.
That gives studios and distribution partners a clear way to see how they earned their share, and gives retailers and advertisers a way to reconcile what they pay against verified net sales.