INDEPENDENT MERCHANT INTELLIGENCEPUBLIC BETA / SEPTEMBER 2026 BASELINE
learn / Merchant field guide

Trust and security for public readiness checks

A store URL is untrusted input. A safe scanner must treat it that way.

Merchant answer / Editorial synthesis

A scanner should not become a proxy into private infrastructure. Our request path normalizes URLs, rejects credentials and nonstandard ports, checks all resolved addresses, pins a validated IP to the connection and verifies redirect destinations. Local, private, link-local, reserved and metadata targets are blocked. DNS checks without connection pinning leave a gap between validation and use.

What this establishes
A practical way to inspect evidence and make the next merchant decision.

What it cannot establish
Live merchant deployment, private account eligibility, purchase completion or guaranteed AI selection.

Evidence dates and document versions remain attached to the ledger below. Editorial presentation reviewed 30 September 2026; this is not a new source verification.

The network boundary comes first

A scanner should not become a proxy into private infrastructure. Our request path normalizes URLs, rejects credentials and nonstandard ports, checks all resolved addresses, pins a validated IP to the connection and verifies redirect destinations. Local, private, link-local, reserved and metadata targets are blocked. DNS checks without connection pinning leave a gap between validation and use.

Bound the work

Every scan has request, response-size and time limits. It reads robots before content, identifies itself and stops on access restrictions. It parses static responses without running JavaScript or forwarding user cookies. Checkout, cart, account and action paths are excluded. These limits reduce scope as well as abuse opportunities; a large or dynamic store may produce Cannot verify publicly.

Keep output inert and private

Untrusted page content is parsed into short text findings and rendered as text. The result is not a new public page. You may explicitly save or download your report; this does not publish it to a benchmark. A security failure blocks release regardless of visual quality or test counts elsewhere.

Your next step

Evidence ledger

Go to the source.

Primary documentation records what is publicly stated. It does not independently prove outcomes or your account’s eligibility.

  • RFC 9309: Robots Exclusion Protocol

    IETF · official primary · Checked 2026-09-28

    Claim scope: Robots parsing and crawler access

    Scanner uses conservative fail-closed handling on unavailable robots.

    Source ID: robots-rfc · Published: Not stated

Dispute a fact or suggest a source