Trust & Compliance

BeRef exists because of one rule: if you have no references, don't fake them — send verifiable proof. This page is our honesty manifesto. It explains how the product is built so that fabricated references, fake reviews and borrowed credibility are impossible by design, and how that design enforces the advertising, consumer-protection, data-protection and AI-transparency rules of the markets we serve.

BeRef is a single-player, business-to-business, professional-use tool for founders, agencies, micro-SaaS teams and consultants. It is not a consumer review site, not a marketplace, and not an advertising network — it is a proof layer that the seller controls and the buyer can verify. The four modules below do the enforcement work:

• Proof Profile — your honest, labeled credibility surface.
• Proof Vault — your store of labeled proof assets.
• Buyer Room — a per-buyer, link-shared view of exactly what is labeled.
• Consent Engine — stored, revocable consent for anything that touches a third party.

The Honest Proof Taxonomy

Every proof asset published through BeRef carries one mandatory, honest label. The label is not decoration — it is a structural requirement, and nothing can be published without one. The buyer always sees exactly what kind of proof they are looking at:

• Live — a real, in-production deployment or result that exists right now and can be checked.
• Demo — a working demonstration of the product, clearly marked as a demo rather than a customer result.
• Sample — illustrative or example material (a sample report, design or output), presented as a sample and not as a delivered customer engagement.
• Pilot outcome — a measured result from a real pilot, with the metrics and context shown honestly.
• Founder statement— a first-person claim by the founder, labelled as the founder's own statement rather than third-party endorsement.

Because the label is honest and unavoidable, a Demo can never masquerade as a Live customer, and a Founder statement can never be dressed up as an independent testimonial. The product makes the deception structurally impossible instead of merely discouraging it.

No fabricated proof — by design, not by promise

BeRef will not generate fake or synthetic reviews, invented testimonials, or misleading logos, and it does not let you publish proof without a truthful label. Where consent-tracked proof is collected from a real third party, that consent is stored and can be revoked, and the asset is taken down on request. Honesty is the mechanic, not the marketing.

United States — FTC §5 & the 2024 Reviews & Testimonials Rule

In the US, deceptive advertising is policed under FTC Act §5 (15 U.S.C. §45), which prohibits unfair or deceptive acts or practices. BeRef proof is designed to be the opposite of deceptive: honest, clearly labeled, and verifiable.

The FTC Consumer Reviews and Testimonials Rule (16 CFR Part 465), in force since 21 October 2024, makes specific practices unlawful. BeRef is built so none of them are possible through the product:

• No fake or AI-fabricated reviews or testimonials — BeRef never creates them, and the taxonomy forbids presenting non-customer material as a customer review.
• No undisclosed insider testimonials— a founder's own words are always shown as a Founder statement, never disguised as an independent voice.
• No bought or coerced sentiment — BeRef does not buy, sell or generate positive (or negative) reviews, and does not suppress honest ones.

The FTC Endorsement Guides (16 CFR Part 255) require that endorsements reflect honest opinions and that material connections are disclosed. Every BeRef proof asset is an honest, disclosed claim with its relationship made plain by its label — it is never passed off as neutral, independent advertising.

European Union — GDPR consent & the Art. 17 one-click revoke

Where proof involves a third party — a quote, a logo right, an identifiable outcome — EU data protection channels it toward a consent-based, revocable model by operation of law. BeRef's Consent Engine implements this directly:

• Lawful basis & valid consent (GDPR Art. 6, Art. 7) — third-party proof is published only on a stored, tracked consent record, and consent must be as easy to withdraw as to give (Art. 7(3)).
• One-click revocation / right to erasure (GDPR Art. 17) — a single action revokes consent and unpublishes the affected proof asset immediately, stopping further processing for that purpose. We build this as a technical guarantee, not just a promise.
• Data minimisation — BeRef collects only what a given proof asset needs, and buyers open a Buyer Room by link without creating an account.

EU AI Act — built for Article 50 transparency

Where any content is AI-assisted or AI-generated, BeRef is designed to label it as such. The transparency duties of EU AI Act Art. 50 — which require that artificially generated or manipulated content be disclosed, that people are told when they are interacting with an AI system, and that deepfakes are disclosed — apply from 2 August 2026, so the product is built to be AI-Act-ready and designed for Article 50 transparency rather than claiming present-day certification. The principle is the same one that runs through the whole product: people should always know what they are looking at.

Germany — UWG §5 / §5a and the Impressum

Germany reinforces the same standard through its Act Against Unfair Competition. UWG §5 prohibits misleading commercial actions and UWG §5a prohibits misleading omissions — withholding material information the recipient needs to decide. Mandatory honest labeling is the product analogue of §5a: honesty is not merely the absence of a false statement but the affirmative disclosure of what each asset is. Provider identification for our German and EU audience is in the Impressum (DDG §5), reachable from every public page.

Türkiye — KVKK and online-commerce law

Türkiye is our home jurisdiction. The Law on the Protection of Personal Data (KVKK, Law No. 6698) governs personal data on requirements broadly parallel to the GDPR — lawful basis or explicit consent, transparency, minimisation, security, and data-subject rights — and BeRef applies the same consent-and-revocation design to all users. The E-Commerce Law (No. 6563) and the Consumer Protection Law (No. 6502) govern online commerce, distance sales and consumer rights, and constrain misleading and deceptive commercial practices.

Markets we monitor

BeRef serves the US and EU (including Germany), and we track the rules that govern honest proof and data across the markets where our users operate:

• United States — FTC Act §5 (15 U.S.C. §45), the FTC Consumer Reviews & Testimonials Rule(16 CFR Part 465, in force since 21 Oct 2024), and applicable state UDAP / privacy laws (for example California's UCL and CCPA/CPRA).
• European Union — GDPR (Arts. 6, 7, 17) and the ePrivacy rules for consent and data minimisation, plus EU AI Act Art. 50 transparency.
• Germany — the DDG (provider identification / Impressum) and the UWG §5 / §5a against misleading commercial practices.
• Türkiye — the KVKK (Law No. 6698), the E-Commerce Law (No. 6563), and the Consumer Protection Law (No. 6502).
• United Kingdom — the Consumer Rights Act 2015, the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013, and the DMCC Act 2024 (fake and misleading reviews unlawful from 6 April 2025).
• Watch list — PIPEDA in Canada and the Privacy Act / ACCC regime in Australia, monitored as we consider those markets.

How this connects to the rest of BeRef

Consent for third-party proof, revocation and data handling are described in our Privacy Policy. Your obligations as a user — including the commitment not to misrepresent proof — are set out in the Terms. Billing, tax and refunds are handled by Paddle as Merchant of Record and explained in the Refund Policy. Provider details for our German and EU audience are in the Impressum. The economic and regulatory case is set out in full in our whitepaper.

Contact

Questions about how BeRef keeps proof honest: beref@beref.tech.