FTC unavoidable disclosure: a link or hover is not enough

No. The FTC's Q&A says "unavoidable" is an objective standard, and that a disclosure is avoidable when "a consumer must take any action, such as clicking on a hyperlink or hovering over an icon, to see" it. A disclosure that is part of the picture needs no action from the viewer, so for video the straightforward route is to put the words in the frame.

Quotes are from the FTC Q&A page, read 2026-10-01. This is not legal advice. Tool facts are from the Video captions and Video trim docs.

What counts as avoidable under the Q&A?

The page quotes the rule's definition of "clear and conspicuous", under which a disclosure is avoidable if the consumer must act to see it. It also says "unavoidable" turns on whether consumers could have avoided the disclosure.

How do I burn disclosure text into an existing video?

POST /v1/video-captions takes a public HTTPS video_url and returns a job-backed captioned video. Pass cues (or segments), each with text, start and end, and the authored text is drawn on the frame without speech-to-text. The docs also note that a silent clip fails as caption_no_speech with next_action: use_overlay_captions, so a silent clip needs authored cues.

Because the result is a new captioned file, you publish that file instead of the clean one. For a related walkthrough see burning captions onto video.

Does trimming affect the burned-in text?

If you cut after captioning, the docs say video trim's default precision: exact is a frame-accurate re-encode (libx264, yuv420p). A cut can remove the seconds where your text appears, so trim first and caption last, then watch the final file.

What is the practical checklist?

Show the words on screen without any tap, keep them on long enough to read, and verify the exported MP4 rather than the preview. The FTC page does not give a timing or size rule, and Sume's docs do not claim a disclosure feature, so the wording and timing remain your decision.