Privacy Policy

1. Introduction

TradeRepute (“we,” “us,” “our”), a product of Untappd Labs Inc. doing business as Specie, prioritizes privacy protection and information security. This Privacy Policy describes how we collect, use, disclose, store and protect information when you use traderepute.com and related services (the “Services”).

This Policy applies to all users, including business entities and their representatives, and to the people whose information appears in verification records. TradeRepute operates a verified business-to-business reputation network: verified companies publish anonymous, evidence-backed trade references about the companies they have traded with. TradeRepute is not a bank, credit bureau, or consumer reporting agency.

TradeRepute is a separate product from Specie’s financial services at specie.finance. This Policy does not cover specie.finance, which has its own privacy policy. We do not combine data between the two products.

By accessing the Services, you acknowledge that you have read, understood and agree to these practices.

2. Information We Collect

2.1 Information You Provide Directly

• Account information: first and last name, email address, password (stored only as a secure hash by our authentication provider) and, optionally, phone number.
• Business information: legal entity name, trading name, country and state or province, registered address, registration number, tax identification number, website, company email domain and business type.
• Identity verification information: legal name, date of birth, country of residence and, where required, an image of a government-issued identification document.
• Authorized representative information: proof that you own, direct or are authorized to act for a business, such as registry records, a verified company-domain email address or a signed authorization letter.
• Verification documents: incorporation or registry documents and a recent commercial document showing the business is actively trading.
• Trade reference content: ratings, written comments, relationship type and dates, and the commercial evidence you upload (such as invoices, bills of lading, contracts or customs and shipping paperwork).
• Claims and disputes: company profile claims, dispute explanations and any supporting documents you submit, and your replies to information requests from our compliance team.
• Payment information: report purchases are processed by Stripe. We receive and store the purchase amount, currency, status and Stripe transaction references. We do not receive or store your card number.
• Communications: support requests and feedback.

2.2 Information Collected Automatically

• Device and access information: IP address, browser type, operating system and access timestamps, which our hosting and authentication providers log when you use the Services.
• Account and security activity: sign-in events, multi-factor authentication status, usage counters we use to limit abusive activity, and an append-only audit log of important actions such as verification decisions, report access and administrative document views.
• Automated safety signals: results of checks we run on submissions, such as a file fingerprint (hash) used to detect the same document being reused, and detection of contact details or personal data inside written references. These can raise internal risk flags for compliance review.

We do not use third-party advertising trackers or third-party analytics tools on the Services. If that changes, we will update this Policy before the change takes effect.

2.3 Information from Third Parties

We may receive information from payment processors, identity verification providers (where we use them), business registries and other public sources that our compliance team consults when verifying a business, and from other verified users who submit information about a company they have traded with.

3. How We Use Your Information

• Service delivery: creating and securing your account, searching companies, processing report purchases and giving you access to the reports you buy.
• Verification and moderation: verifying people and businesses, reviewing evidence, deciding whether a reference is published, handling claims, disputes and information requests.
• Fraud prevention and security: detecting fake or duplicate accounts, reused or fabricated evidence, attempts to identify anonymous reviewers, and other abuse; rate limiting; and keeping audit records.
• Compliance and legal obligations: meeting legal, tax, accounting, sanctions and regulatory requirements and responding to lawful requests.
• Platform improvement: troubleshooting, measuring reliability and improving features, using aggregated or de-identified information where practicable.
• Communications: account and security emails (such as confirmation and password reset messages), updates about your verification, purchases, disputes and claims, and legal notices. We do not send marketing email without your consent.

4. How Reviewer Anonymity Works

Reviews on TradeRepute are anonymous to the public and to the reviewed company, but not to our compliance team. This is built into how we store data, not only how pages look:

• Published reference content is kept in a separate record from reviewer identity. The published record contains the ratings, the text and the year it was written, and no link to the reviewer, the reviewer’s business or the evidence.
• Reviewer identity, the reviewer’s business and uploaded evidence are private to the reviewer and to authorized compliance staff.
• Compliance staff use multi-factor authentication, view documents through short-lived access links, and each view is recorded in the audit log.
• Reviewed companies can dispute a reference privately through us. They cannot reply publicly, contact the reviewer through the Services, or learn the reviewer’s identity from us.
• We screen references for personal data and contact details before publication. Reviewers should avoid including anything that could identify them, because we cannot guarantee anonymity if the text itself reveals who wrote it.

We may disclose reviewer identity only where required by law, legal process or a regulator, or where we believe in good faith that disclosure is necessary to protect our rights, your safety or the safety of others.

5. How We Share Your Information

We do not sell personal information. Information sharing occurs with:

• Service providers: infrastructure vendors that process data on our behalf under contractual safeguards, including Supabase (database, authentication and private file storage), Vercel (hosting) and Stripe (payment processing).
• Identity and compliance providers: third-party vendors that help with identity verification, sanctions screening and fraud prevention, if and when we use them.
• Other users: published references are shown, without reviewer identity, to account holders who unlock the relevant company report and to the reviewed company if it claims its profile. Company information such as legal name and country appears in search results.
• Law enforcement and regulators: when required by law, legal process or regulatory request, or when we believe in good faith that disclosure is necessary to protect our rights, your safety or the safety of others.
• Corporate transactions: information may transfer to a successor entity in a merger, acquisition, reorganization or asset sale.

6. Companies That Are Reviewed

A company can have a TradeRepute profile even if it never created an account. These profiles are built from information submitted by verified users and from public business records, and they are limited to business information such as legal name, trading name, country and registration details. If you operate as a sole proprietor, some of that information may relate to you personally. Contact privacy@specie.finance to correct it, or claim the profile after verification.

7. International Data Transfers

TradeRepute serves businesses worldwide. Information may be transferred to, stored in and processed in countries other than your residence, including the United States, where our servers and providers operate. These countries may have different data protection laws.

Where required, we implement appropriate safeguards for international transfers, including standard contractual clauses or other lawful mechanisms. Using the Services constitutes consent to the transfers described in this Policy, where consent is a valid basis.

8. Data Retention

We retain personal information while your account is active and as needed to provide the Services. We also retain information as required to meet legal, tax, accounting and regulatory obligations and to prevent fraud and abuse.

• Government ID images: where collected, copies of government-issued identification are scheduled for deletion 90 days after the verification decision. We keep the outcome of the check, not the image.
• Other verification records and documents: retained while your business is verified and afterwards as needed for compliance, fraud prevention and dispute handling.
• Trade references and evidence: published references remain while they are published. Evidence and moderation records are retained as needed to resolve disputes and to support the integrity of the network.
• Audit logs: append-only and retained for security and accountability.
• Payment records: retained as required by tax and accounting law.

When retention is no longer necessary, we securely delete or anonymize the information.

9. Data Security

We use administrative, technical and organizational measures to protect information from unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration and destruction. These include encryption of data in transit, database-level access controls, private storage for verification documents and evidence, validation of uploaded files, multi-factor authentication for staff, short-lived document access links and audit logging.

No method of transmission or storage is completely secure. While we strive to use commercially reasonable means to protect your information, we cannot guarantee its absolute security.

10. Your Rights

Depending on your jurisdiction and applicable law, your rights may include:

• Access: request a copy of the personal information we hold about you.
• Correction: request that inaccurate or incomplete information be corrected.
• Deletion: request deletion of your personal information, subject to legal retention requirements and our need to keep records that protect the integrity of the network.
• Portability: request your data in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format.
• Objection and restriction: object to or restrict certain processing.
• Withdraw consent: withdraw consent at any time where processing is based on consent, without affecting earlier processing.

Contact privacy@specie.finance to exercise your rights. We respond within the timeframes required by applicable law and may verify your identity before acting on a request. Account deletion is handled by request, and we may need to keep certain records after deletion as described in Section 8. To protect reviewers, we will not disclose to a reviewed company, in response to any request, the identity of the person or business that wrote a reference.

11. Jurisdiction-Specific Provisions

11.1 United States

Residents of California, Virginia, Colorado, Connecticut, Utah, Texas, Oregon, Montana, Delaware, Iowa, Tennessee and Indiana may have additional rights under applicable state privacy laws, which may include confirming whether we process their personal information, access, correction, deletion, a portable copy, opting out of targeted advertising or profiling, and appealing a denied request. Contact privacy@specie.finance to exercise these rights. We do not sell personal information or share personal information for cross-context behavioral advertising.

11.2 European Economic Area, United Kingdom and Switzerland

Residents may have rights under applicable data protection laws, including the GDPR, such as access, correction, erasure, restriction, objection to certain processing, data portability and the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority. We process personal data on one or more lawful bases, including performance of a contract, compliance with legal obligations, legitimate business interests (such as preventing fraud and keeping the network trustworthy) and consent, where required by applicable law. Contact privacy@specie.finance to exercise your rights.

11.3 Latin America

Residents of Latin American jurisdictions may have additional rights under national data protection laws. These include, in Argentina (Ley 25.326), rights to access, rectify, update and delete personal data, with complaints to the Agencia de Acceso a la Información Pública; in Brazil (LGPD), rights including confirmation of processing, access, correction, anonymization, blocking or deletion of unnecessary data, portability and information about sharing, with complaints to the Autoridad Nacional de Protección de Datos (ANPD); in Mexico (LFPDPPP), ARCO rights of access, rectification, cancellation and opposition; in Colombia (Ley 1581 of 2012), rights to know, update, rectify and delete personal data and revoke consent, with complaints to the Superintendencia de Industria y Comercio; and in Peru (Ley 29733), rights to access, rectify, cancel and oppose processing, with complaints to the Autoridad Nacional de Protección de Datos Personales. Submit requests to privacy@specie.finance.

12. Cookies and Tracking Technologies

We use only the cookies needed to run the Services, such as authentication cookies that keep you signed in and help protect your account. We do not use advertising cookies. Our payment processor, Stripe, may set its own cookies on its checkout pages. You can manage cookies through your browser settings, but disabling essential cookies will stop you from signing in.

13. Children’s Privacy

The Services are intended for business entities and authorized adult representatives. We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under the age of eighteen. If we become aware that we have inadvertently collected information from a minor, we will take steps to delete it promptly. If you believe a minor has provided us personal information, contact privacy@specie.finance.

14. Third-Party Links and Services

The Services may contain links to, or integrate with, third-party websites and services, including Stripe for payments. This Policy does not apply to those third parties, which may independently collect, use and disclose information under their own terms and policies. TradeRepute is not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of third-party websites, services or platforms, and your interactions with them are governed by their applicable terms.

15. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Policy to reflect changes in our practices, technology, legal requirements or operations. If we make material changes, we will update the effective date and, where practicable, notify you through the Services or by email. Your continued use of the Services after a change constitutes acceptance of the updated Policy.

16. Contact Information

For questions, concerns or requests regarding this Privacy Policy or our data practices, contact:

Untappd Labs Inc., DBA Specie
Email: privacy@specie.finance
Website: traderepute.com

TradeRepute is not a bank, credit bureau or consumer reporting agency. References are the opinions of verified reviewers and are provided for business due diligence only. Sample reports on this site use fictional data.