Product seeding compliance checklist: FTC disclosure, age-gated products and privacy

Before you start

This is a practical checklist from a team that runs gifting programs, not legal advice. It covers the US only. Rules change, and your product category may have its own. Every claim below links to a primary source so you can check it, and for anything high-stakes, ask a lawyer.

1. FTC disclosure for gifted posts

The FTC's guidance for influencers is direct: if you got anything of value to mention a product, disclose it, and free or discounted products count. That applies to gifts with no obligation to post, not only to paid deals. See Disclosures 101 for social media influencers.

What a good disclosure looks like

• It is in the post itself, not only on a profile page or behind a "more" link.
• It is hard to miss: at the start of a caption, superimposed on a photo or Story, said out loud and shown on screen in a video, and repeated during a live stream.
• It uses plain words: "Gifted by [brand]", "Thanks to [brand] for the free product", "ad" or "sponsored" for paid posts.
• It is in the same language as the post.

What does not work on its own

The FTC's Endorsement Guides FAQ says a bare "#gifted" without the brand name is likely to be ambiguous, and that a thank-you to the brand does not necessarily tell people the product was free. Vague tags like "sp", "spon", "collab" or "ambassador" are called out in Disclosures 101 as unclear. Platform disclosure tools, such as paid-partnership labels, are worth using, but the FTC says not to assume they are enough by themselves.

What the brand is responsible for

Brands are not off the hook because the talent wrote the post. The Endorsement Guides FAQ says advertisers should have reasonable programs to train and monitor the people they work with, and that for gifting, a brand should ask recipients to disclose and then monitor the resulting posts. Handing the program to an agency or platform does not remove that responsibility.

• Your invite asks talent to disclose any post about the gift, with example wording.
• Paid deals include disclosure as a written term.
• Someone checks posts and asks for a fix when a disclosure is missing or buried.
• You keep a record of the disclosure request and the follow-up.
• You do not ask talent to make claims about the product they cannot back up, such as health benefits.

2. Alcohol and other age-restricted products

Gifting alcohol, cannabis-adjacent products, tobacco or anything else with an age limit adds two problems: who can receive it, and how it can legally ship.

Who can receive it

• Only invite talent who have confirmed they are of legal age, and keep the drop invisible to everyone else.
• Check that the talent's audience is mostly of legal age too. Posting alcohol to a young audience is a problem even if the recipient is 21.
• Follow your own industry's advertising code if you belong to one.

How it can ship

Carriers are strict. USPS says beer, wine and liquor may not be mailed except in limited circumstances. FedEx only accepts alcohol from licensed shippers it has approved under an alcohol shipping agreement, does not let individuals ship alcohol, and requires an adult signature at delivery for every US package containing alcohol. UPS runs a similar approved-shipper program for wine. State rules on direct shipping vary as well, so the shipper of record needs the right licenses for both ends.

In practice, most brands ship age-restricted gifts through their licensed retailer, winery or fulfillment partner rather than packing them in-house.

• The drop is marked 21+ and hidden from anyone who has not confirmed their age.
• The shipper of record is licensed and approved by the carrier.
• Destination states are checked before invites go out.
• Every parcel ships adult signature required.
• Packaging and labels meet the carrier's alcohol rules.

On Comms, a drop can be marked 21+ so only talent who have confirmed they are 21 or older can see or claim it, with adult signature at delivery.

3. Minors and COPPA

The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act applies to websites and online services directed to children under 13, and to general-audience services that know they are collecting personal information from children under 13. Covered operators must get verifiable parental consent before collecting that information, with limited exceptions. The FTC's COPPA FAQ is the best starting point, and notes that the COPPA Rule was amended in 2025. See also the FTC's children's privacy hub.

For most seeding programs the safe approach is simple: do not collect sign-ups, sizes or addresses from children. If you want to work with a family account or young talent, deal with a parent or guardian, or the child's management, and keep the data on the adult.

• Your claim and sign-up forms are aimed at adults, and ask for confirmation of age.
• Accounts run for children are handled through a parent, guardian or manager.
• Teen talent (13 to 17) are handled with care: parental involvement for contracts, and no age-restricted products.
• You remove data you learn was collected from a child.

4. Addresses are personal data

Home addresses, phone numbers, sizes and sometimes body measurements are personal information. Several US states give residents rights over that data. California's CCPA, for example, lets residents ask businesses what personal information they hold, ask them to delete it, and opt out of its sale or sharing. Whether the law applies to you depends on your size and activities, but the habits below are good practice regardless.

• Collect only what shipping needs.
• Say, at the point of collection, how the data will be used and who will see it.
• Limit who on the team can see full addresses.
• Do not keep addresses in shared spreadsheets or chat threads.
• Delete or archive addresses once they are no longer needed.
• Have a way to answer a request to see or delete someone's data.
• Never share talent contact details with other brands without consent.

Comms keeps contact details private on both sides of a conversation, and talent can turn on private address so a brand never sees their street address. Our privacy policy and data deletion page explain the rest. For workflow tips, see gifting without the spreadsheet.

5. Paid deals and usage rights

Once money changes hands, put the terms in writing: deliverables, timing, disclosure, approval and usage rights. Usage rights matter most when you want to run talent content as ads: say where, for how long, and whether you can edit it. Our gifting vs paid deals guide has a simple structure.

Questions people ask