EU and UK Disclosure Rules for Brand Posts in Online Communities

The rule in one sentence

If you post for your business, the post has to make that obvious, and you may never pretend to be an ordinary customer.

This guide is for founders, staff and agencies in the EU or UK who answer questions on Reddit, X, forums and other communities. The rules reach a founder replying in a thread, an employee recommending the company's tool, and a contractor posting on your behalf.

EU: the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive

The base text is Directive 2005/29/EC, usually called the UCPD. Germany's version is set out further down. Three parts of the directive matter for brand posts.

• Who is a trader (Article 2(b)). A trader is anyone acting for purposes of their business, and also anyone acting in the name of or on behalf of a trader. A founder, an employee or an agency writing for the company is inside that definition.
• Hidden commercial intent (Article 7(2)). Failing to identify the commercial intent of a practice, when it is not already apparent from the context, is a misleading omission if it is likely to lead the average consumer to a decision they would not otherwise have taken.
• The blacklist (Annex I). Annex I lists practices that are unfair in all circumstances, with no case-by-case test. Point 22 bans falsely claiming or giving the impression that the trader is not acting for business purposes, or falsely presenting oneself as a consumer. Point 11 bans paid editorial content that promotes a product without making the payment clear. Point 23c bans submitting, or commissioning someone else to submit, false consumer reviews or endorsements, and misrepresenting reviews or social endorsements to promote products.

Article 7(2) has a context test: a reply from an account named after your brand already shows who is speaking. Point 22 has no test at all. A founder writing "I tried a few tools and this one worked for me" without saying they built it fits the wording of point 22 closely.

EU platforms: the Digital Services Act toggle

The Digital Services Act puts a separate duty on the platforms. Article 26(2) requires online platforms to give users a way to declare that their content is or contains commercial communication. Once a user declares it, the platform must show other users, clearly and in real time, that the content is commercial, for example with a prominent marking.

If the platform you post on offers that control, use it when a post promotes your product. We have not checked how each community platform implements it, or whether any regulator treats the toggle alone as enough. Write the disclosure in the text as well, so it survives screenshots, quotes and AI summaries that drop the platform's label.

Germany: UWG and DDG

Germany has its own versions of these rules, plus a duty to make clear on whose behalf a commercial communication is made. Four provisions apply.

• [Section 2(1) No. 8 UWG](https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/uwg_2004/__2.html). A trader (Unternehmer) includes anyone acting in the name of or on behalf of a business, the same as in the directive.
• [Section 5a(4) UWG](https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/uwg_2004/__5a.html). Not making the commercial purpose of a business act recognisable is unfair if the purpose is not obvious from the circumstances and the omission is likely to lead the reader to a decision they would not otherwise have taken. A post that promotes another company has no commercial purpose if the poster gets no payment or similar benefit from that company, but the law presumes a benefit unless the poster makes it credible that there was none.
• The [annex to section 3(3) UWG](https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/uwg_2004/anhang.html). It repeats the EU blacklist: No. 11 (advertising disguised as information), No. 22 (falsely claiming or giving the impression of being a consumer or of not acting for business) and No. 23c (submitting or commissioning fake consumer reviews or endorsements, and misrepresenting them in social media to promote sales).
• [Section 6(1) DDG](https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/ddg/__6.html). Commercial communication in digital services must be clearly recognisable as such, and the person on whose behalf it is made must be clearly identifiable. The section is addressed to service providers (Diensteanbieter); we have not checked how courts apply it to a single comment.

The DDG point goes one step further than "this is an ad". The reader should be able to tell whose ad it is. "Disclosure: I work at Acme" does both. "Ad" with no name does not.

UK: the DMCC Act, CMA guidance and the CAP Code

Since 6 April 2025 the UK's banned practices sit in Schedule 20 of the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024, brought into force by S.I. 2025/272. Three paragraphs are relevant to brand posts.

• Paragraph 12 bans paid editorial promotion that does not make the payment clear.
• Paragraph 13 bans submitting, or commissioning someone to submit or write, a fake consumer review or a review that hides that it was incentivised. It also bans offering traders services that do this, or that make it easier to do. The paragraph defines "writing" as including creating by any means, which on its face covers text produced with software.
• Paragraph 25 bans falsely claiming or creating the false impression that a trader is not acting for business purposes, or falsely presenting oneself as a consumer.

The CMA's guidance, Unfair commercial practices (CMA207), last updated on 18 November 2025, adds three points worth knowing. Its trader definition can capture agents, subcontractors and representatives acting for the trader, so an agency posting for you is covered too. It also notes that a person can be convicted when their act or omission caused someone else to commit an offence. It describes the banned practices as strict liability offences, which means intent does not have to be shown, subject to the statutory defences. And its examples of hidden commercial intent include a paid video whose commercial intent was not made clear at the outset.

The advertising self-regulator says the same in its own code. CAP Code section 2 requires marketing to be obviously identifiable as marketing (rule 2.1), bans falsely claiming or implying that the marketer is acting as a consumer, requires commercial intent to be made clear when the context does not show it (rule 2.3), and asks for advertorials to be labeled (rule 2.4).

What EU enforcers have looked at

On 14 February 2024 the European Commission and consumer authorities of 22 member states, Norway and Iceland published a sweep of posts by 576 influencers. Two findings matter for brands that post themselves:

• 40% of the influencers checked promoted their own products, services or brands, and 60% of those did not disclose it consistently or at all. Own-brand promotion was counted, not only paid deals.
• Only 34% made the disclosure visible straight away, without clicking "read more" or scrolling. Authorities looked at where the label sits, not only whether it exists.

What is coming: the Digital Fairness Act

The European Parliament's Legislative Train page lists the Digital Fairness Act as announced, with an indicative date of the fourth quarter of 2026 in the Commission's work programme. It is expected to deal with misleading marketing by social media influencers, among other topics. When we checked on 22 October 2026, the page (last updated 20 September 2026) did not show a proposal, so we do not know yet what it will require. The rules above apply today either way.

How to disclose in practice

1. Decide whether the post is commercial
   If you, your company or someone you pay benefits when readers act on the post, treat it as commercial. That covers founders, staff, contractors and agencies.
2. Put the line at the start
   The CMA example turns on intent not being clear at the outset, and the EU sweep counted labels hidden behind "read more". Lead with the disclosure, not a footnote.
3. Name the company
   "I work at Acme" tells readers both that the post is commercial and on whose behalf, which is what the German DDG asks for.
4. Write it in the thread's language
   A German thread gets a German line. A disclosure readers cannot understand does not make the intent apparent.
5. Never post as a customer
   No wording fixes a post that pretends to be from an unconnected user. Point 22 of the EU blacklist and paragraph 25 of the UK schedule ban it outright.

More wording for founders, staff and agencies is in our disclosure templates, and clear disclosure in a comment covers where the line goes in a short reply. If you are deciding who should post at all, see brand account or founder account.

Agencies, contractors and AI tools

The UCPD, the UWG and the CMA guidance all treat someone acting on your behalf as a trader. If an agency posts for you, the post needs the same disclosure as if you wrote it. Submitting fake customer reviews, or commissioning someone else to submit them, is banned in both the EU and the UK. The UK schedule also bans offering services to traders that produce fake or incentive-hiding reviews, or help others produce them.

The same applies to drafts from software. If you use Agent Agency, you decide whether and how the comments it drafts disclose your connection; the law and platform rules require disclosing a material connection. In Approve mode every post, comment and DM waits for your OK, so the disclosure check can be part of that review.

If your readers are also in the US

In the US, the FTC's Endorsement Guides ask for a clear and conspicuous disclosure of a material connection, such as a business relationship, that the audience would not reasonably expect. They are covered in our FTC disclosure notes. One line at the start of the post, naming the company, is a reasonable way to write for both audiences.

What this guide leaves out

This is not legal advice. It does not cover fine amounts, national court decisions, whether a disclosure in a profile or bio is enough, labeling rules for AI-generated text, or how each platform's commercial-content setting maps to national law. We did not verify those points, so we left them out rather than guess.

Questions

Does a founder replying on Reddit need to disclose under EU law?

If the reply promotes their own product and the connection is not obvious from context, yes. The UCPD counts hiding commercial intent as a misleading omission, and Annex I point 22 bans giving the impression of not acting for business. One line such as "I built this" at the start of the reply makes the connection clear.

Is a brand account enough on its own?

Often, for posts that come from an account clearly named after the company, because the commercial intent is apparent from the context. That is the test in Article 7(2) of the UCPD and rule 2.3 of the CAP Code. It does not cover personal accounts of staff or agencies.

In Approve mode every post, comment and DM waits for your OK. Join the waitlist