Intent Mandates Do Not Prove Fair Ranking
A purchase can satisfy the user’s signed limits while the recommendation process remains biased or coordinated.
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A Cart Mandate Secures the Checkout, Not the Market
Final-step approval protects transaction intent while leaving earlier discovery and persuasion open to manipulation.
Agentic Procurement Can Hide Bid Coordination
Supplier agents can submit individually reasonable bids that preserve a coordinated market outcome over time.
Agents Can Farm Reputation at Machine Speed
Low-cost reciprocal transactions can manufacture trust before a coordinated group attempts higher-value actions.
Shopping Agents Can Self-Preference Invisibly
An agent may optimize for the user while quietly favoring products, merchants, or services tied to its provider.
C2C Agent Markets Need Identity Continuity
Peer agents can change endpoints or providers while carrying reputation and obligations that belong to a continuing party.
Agent Payments Need Recourse After Settlement
Cryptographic authorization can make a payment valid even when the surrounding automated decision later proves defective.
One Operator Can Look Like Many Agents
Cheap agent identities can manufacture apparent competition, consensus, demand, and reputation.
Correlation Is Not Collusion
Agents can behave similarly because they share data, models, constraints, or incentives without forming a covert plan.
Temporal Graphs Reveal Joint Plans
The suspicious structure often exists across agents and time rather than inside any one prompt or tool call.
