Badge and Mark Usage Terms
1. What these terms cover
These terms govern every display of a Trooth badge, seal, wordmark or logo by anyone other than Trooth, LLC. They apply whether the display is on a website, in a document, in a presentation, in an application, in an email, or in printed material.
They apply in addition to a company's customer agreement. Where a customer agreement and these terms address the same subject, these terms govern the display and the customer agreement governs everything else.
Accepting a badge is accepting these terms. No separate signature is required, and embedding the badge code is acceptance.
2. The principle these terms exist to protect
A Trooth badge asserts something about the moment it is seen. It reports evidence that was witnessed at a stated time and it can stop being true.
Every rule below follows from one requirement: a person looking at a Trooth badge must be seeing the current state, or must be able to tell that they are not. A badge that shows a favorable fact that has since changed is worse for the displaying company than no badge, because it converts a lapsed credential into a false statement made in that company's own voice on that company's own page.
3. The live embed, which is the only fully permitted form
The badge is distributed as an embed that resolves its state at the moment it is rendered. Revocation and changes to the witnessed record propagate to it.
A company displaying the live embed is displaying a current fact and needs to do nothing further. This is the only form of display that carries no additional obligations under these terms.
What is required of the live embed
| Requirement | Rule |
|---|---|
| Integrity | The embed is displayed as delivered. Its markup, styling and dimensions are not modified |
| Linking | The badge links to the company's Trooth profile. That link is not removed, redirected or intercepted |
| Placement | The badge is not placed so as to imply endorsement of a product, claim or transaction it does not cover |
| Context | The badge is not combined with adjacent text that restates it more strongly than it states itself |
| Concealment | The badge is not hidden from, or served differently to, any class of visitor |
4. Static images of a badge
A screenshot, an exported image, a printed badge or any other fixed reproduction cannot revoke itself. It is a permanent claim made from a temporary fact.
Static reproduction is permitted only on all four of these conditions:
- The date is shown. The reproduction carries the date on which the state it shows was witnessed, legibly, adjacent to the badge.
- It is not presented as current. The reproduction is not accompanied by language asserting that the state is current as of the reader's date.
- It is not used as a credential in a transaction. A static badge is not supplied in response to a security questionnaire, a procurement request, a diligence request or a tender, in place of the live profile. In those contexts the profile link is supplied instead.
- It is withdrawn when it becomes wrong. A company that learns its state has changed materially removes or updates the reproduction in materials it controls, within 30 days.
Static reproduction in advertising is not permitted. A paid placement is the one context where a reader has no way to check and the incentive to overstate is highest.
The rule this is really about
A badge in a sales deck, six months after the evidence behind it went stale, is the single most damaging misuse available. It is also the most tempting and the least deliberate. Condition 1 exists so that a reader can always tell what they are looking at, and it is the condition Trooth will enforce first.
5. The wordmark and the logo
Trooth does not publish a rating, a grade, a numeric standing or a plan name, so there is none to display and none to claim. A badge says that a company is on the Trooth Network and carries the date its record was last witnessed. That is the whole of what it asserts.
| Element | Permitted | Not permitted |
|---|---|---|
| Witnessed date | Displaying it as delivered in the live embed | Reproducing a date in text that is not the date actually witnessed |
| The word Trooth | Referring to Trooth, and to being on the Trooth Network | Using it in a product name, a domain, an app name, a company name or a mark |
| The Trooth logo | Displaying it as delivered in the embed | Any modification of color, proportion or typography. Any use as the displaying company's own mark |
Logo reproduction outside the embed follows the Trooth Logo Usage Guidelines, including the clear-space rule of one mark height on every side and the minimum sizes of 32 pixels digital and half an inch in print.
6. Language that may never accompany a badge
Trooth witnesses and confirms. It does not certify, verify, guarantee, approve, accredit or endorse, and a badge may not be presented as if it did.
Not permitted, in any proximity to a badge or a Trooth mark:
- Certified by Trooth, Trooth verified, Trooth approved, Trooth accredited, Trooth guaranteed, audited by Trooth.
- Any claim that Trooth has audited, assured, insured or underwritten the displaying company.
- Any claim that a badge covers a product, model, feature or subsidiary that the underlying profile does not cover.
- Any comparative claim about another company derived from Trooth data.
Permitted: Witnessed by Trooth, Confirmed by Trooth, Trooth Network member, View our Trooth profile, and the date the record was witnessed.
This distinction is not stylistic. Trooth observes public and connected systems and reports what it observed. It does not perform an audit, and a company that describes it as one is making a claim about a service that was never provided.
7. When a badge must come down
A company removes the badge and every static reproduction it controls, promptly and without notice from Trooth, when any of the following becomes true.
| Trigger | Deadline |
|---|---|
| The profile is unpublished, withdrawn or deleted | Immediately |
| The company's account is closed or deleted | Immediately |
| Trooth revokes the badge under section 8 | Immediately |
| The company ceases to operate the domain the profile covers | Immediately |
| A static reproduction has become materially wrong | 30 days |
The live embed handles the first three by itself, which is why it is the preferred form. The obligation to remove static reproductions is the company's alone, because Trooth cannot reach them.
8. Revocation
Trooth may suspend or revoke a badge where:
- The badge is displayed in breach of these terms.
- The evidence behind it can no longer be witnessed, for any reason.
- The company obstructs, falsifies or interferes with the observation the badge reports.
- A dispute filed under the network dispute process is settled against the fact the badge asserts.
Before revoking for breach of these terms rather than for absence of evidence, Trooth notifies the company at its profile contact address and allows seven days to correct the display. Revocation for absence of evidence is automatic and immediate, because it is not a sanction: it is the badge reporting the truth.
Revocation of a badge is not a statement that the company failed anything. Where Trooth communicates a revocation publicly, it says which of the four grounds applied.
9. Enforcement
Trooth's remedies for misuse are, in the order they will ordinarily be used:
- A notice to the profile contact, with the specific display identified and seven days to correct it.
- Suspension of the badge.
- Revocation, and where relevant a note on the public profile stating that a badge was revoked for display reasons rather than evidence reasons.
- Any remedy available at law.
Trooth will not make a public statement about a display issue before step 1 has been completed and the period has run. A company that corrects a display within the notice period has no public record of the matter.
10. Changes to these terms
These terms may change. Where a change adds an obligation on a displaying company, it takes effect 30 days after publication and the current version is always the one published at trooth.co. A company that does not accept a change removes the badge before the change takes effect.
Changes that only clarify an existing obligation, or that relax one, take effect on publication.
Revision note. Revised September 4, 2026. One sentence in the section on the live embed referred to changes in a composite figure, and one row of the removal table referred to a subscription lapsing; that row now refers to the account being closed. Trooth does not compute or publish a composite figure; a Trust Profile reports what was witnessed and when. No right or obligation was narrowed, and the correction is recorded under our publication and correction policy.
Revision note. Revised September 23, 2026. An earlier revision note above described a Trust Profile by a count of checks, a measure this product no longer uses; it now says what a profile reports. Spelling is now American throughout, as Trooth is a Florida limited liability company, and dates are written month first. No right or obligation was narrowed, and the correction is recorded under our publication and correction policy.
Revision note. Revised October 4, 2026. Wording only: the word this document used for a single number summing a company up, in its clauses and in the earlier revision notes above, is now "composite figure" or "rating", the words used everywhere else Trooth publishes. The meaning is unchanged: no right or obligation was added, narrowed or removed, and the correction is recorded under our publication and correction policy.