Product Images and Screenshots from Amazon - The Great Debate

Screenshots

I recently learned that you cannot use screenshots of Amazon customer reviews on your website. I was doing this for months and months thinking it was fine. I have seen other people do the same thing. Apparently it is not alright (at least not with Amazon).

Here is my question and Amazons response on the issue :

ME: I wanted to know if I can take a screenshot of a review from your website and have it on my website within my own personal review. It would be clear that the review was from Amazon. I would then link with a text below my screenshot that says, "Read More Reviews On Amazon" and link to the review page for that product.

AMAZON: We would ask that you do not screen shot any reviews from Amazon.com, as this could be a security issue for our customers. A lot of our customers use their real names. You may paraphrase a review, also with out the customers name.

Ok, so no screenshots from Amazon. I asked another company that I affiliate for if I could take screenshots of reviews from their site and they said yes, so best to ask before you do.

Product Images

This is something that really confuses me. I have heard Jay say that you can use product images from merchants websites. You see these same images used everywhere the product is sold. And yet, you are not allowed to save that image from Amazon and use it on your site ( I find this to be a stupid rule). I don't like to use Amazon's image link because it gets blocked by ad-blockers. Why can't I use what the company provides to it's sellers??

Here is my conversation with Amazon:

ME: I also wanted to know if I can save a product image from your website and use it in a product review. I know that you have image links but they get blocked by ad-blockers and I would rather just use a saved product image. I see these same images on all online retail outlets for the same product so I assume they are owned by the company making the product.

AMAZON: Saving our images is against our operating agreement. That could be a trademark issue if that item can not linked. (please read our operating agreement for more information on which items can and can not be linked). So if possible please use the images from our product linking. You may also advise your customers to turn off the ad blockers.

Prices

In the training we are shown to include a price in our reviews...well this is a no-no with Amazon too!

ME: Can I write the current price in my review or should I leave that out and use a text link that says, "check the current price now".

AMAZON: We would also advise you to not to add prices. It could be very misleading.

So now I have to go through ALL of my product reviews and remove prices, change images and get rid of screenshots. This is going to use up a bunch of time, but I guess I have to do it.

I find it annoying that there is so much conflicting information on the internet about what you can and can't do. Someone really needs to write out Amazon's terms and conditions in plain English and show examples of what we can and cannot do. That would be a valuable resource. If any of you are up for the challange I say DO it!