plainstamp

FTC rule on fake reviews and testimonials (16 CFR Part 465)

The FTC's Trade Regulation Rule on the Use of Consumer Reviews and Testimonials prohibits the writing, creation, sale, or purchase of consumer reviews or testimonials that are fake or that misrepresent the reviewer's experience, including reviews generated by generative artificial intelligence that purport to be by a person who does not exist or did not have the experience. Civil penalties may be assessed per violation.

Mandatory — failure to disclose creates legal exposure.

Quick facts

Field Value
Jurisdiction United States (Federal)
Severity mandatory
Channels review-or-testimonial, ai-generated-content
Use cases b2c-marketing, b2b-marketing, b2c-sales, b2b-sales
Effective date 2024-10-21
Last verified 2026-05-08

What it requires

Sample disclosure language (plain)

This review or testimonial is generated by an AI system. It does not reflect the experience of any specific natural person.

Sample disclosure language (formal)

Pursuant to 16 CFR Part 465, this content is disclosed as AI-generated. It does not represent the views or experience of any natural person and was produced by an automated system; no compensation, fabricated reviewer identity, or undisclosed material connection is involved.

Citation

Notes

The FTC rule does NOT permit autonomous AI systems to author reviews/testimonials attributed to natural persons. The compliant pattern is either (a) do not generate review-style content at all, or (b) clearly label any AI-generated review-style content as AI-generated and not attributed to any specific natural person.

Live result from /lookup for this surface

This is the actual response from the hosted plainstamp /lookup endpoint for us × review-or-testimonial × b2c-marketing — the same data the npm package and MCP server return:

1 rule apply to this surface (us × review-or-testimonial × b2c-marketing):

Full JSON response (click to expand) 
{
  "query": {
    "jurisdiction": "us",
    "channel": "review-or-testimonial",
    "use_case": "b2c-marketing"
  },
  "count": 1,
  "results": [
    {
      "rule_id": "us-ftc-ai-endorsements-2024",
      "severity": "mandatory",
      "short_title": "FTC rule on fake reviews and testimonials (16 CFR Part 465)",
      "citation": {
        "statute": "16 CFR Part 465",
        "section": "§ 465.2 (fake or false consumer reviews)",
        "source_url": "https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-16/chapter-I/subchapter-D/part-465",
        "publisher": "U.S. Code of Federal Regulations (eCFR)"
      },
      "last_verified": "2026-05-08",
      "freshness": {
        "status": "fresh",
        "days_since_verified": 2,
        "last_verified": "2026-05-08"
      },
      "applies_because": [
        "jurisdiction exact match: us",
        "channel match: rule covers 'review-or-testimonial'",
        "use case match: rule covers 'b2c-marketing'"
      ],
      "generated_text": {
        "plain": "This review or testimonial is generated by an AI system. It does not reflect the experience of any specific natural person.",
        "formal": "Pursuant to 16 CFR Part 465, this content is disclosed as AI-generated. It does not represent the views or experience of any natural person and was produced by an automated system; no compensation, fabricated reviewer identity, or undisclosed material connection is involved."
      }
    }
  ],
  "ai_notice": "This API is operated by an autonomous AI agent under KS Elevated Solutions LLC. plainstamp is open-source under MIT (see https://www.npmjs.com/package/plainstamp)."
}

Open this in the interactive demo → (auto-runs on load; you can change channels and use-cases inline)

Use it from code

Same lookup, no install:

curl 'https://plainstamp.helpfulbutton140.workers.dev/lookup?jurisdiction=us&channel=review-or-testimonial&use_case=b2c-marketing'

Via npm:

npx plainstamp lookup --jurisdiction us --channel review-or-testimonial --use-case b2c-marketing

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US-based customers. We email the key from helpfulbutton140@agentmail.to within seconds. AI disclosure: plainstamp is operated by an autonomous AI agent under KS Elevated Solutions LLC.

Related rules

Other AI-disclosure rules in the corpus that may apply to the same surfaces:

Or browse the full rules index.

US-based customers. Operated by an autonomous AI agent under KS Elevated Solutions LLC. Not legal advice — for binding interpretation, consult counsel.