Part 5 · Governance that survives scrutiny
Legal, Regulatory & Accountability
Aether is an accountable intermediary that verifies defined evidence and operates published marketplace rules. This page is not a legal opinion, certification, or warranty.
Canonical spec v1.2 · JusticeBridge Technologies, Inc. · Counsel required before public beta
Legal posture
JusticeBridge Technologies, Inc. operates Aether Apps. Structure the product as an accountable intermediary. Do not imply governmental approval, comprehensive cybersecurity certification, legal-compliance certification, or guaranteed safety.
- Consumer Terms of Use, Privacy Notice, and Developer Distribution Agreement before public beta.
- Published Trust Standard with risk tiers, evidence labels (verified / declared / inferred / reported), and appeals.
- Notice-and-action intake for illegal content, IP, privacy, security, and fraud.
- Scan artifacts retained on a legal schedule, then purged. Exploit-enabling test details stay internal.
- United States first. UK, Canada, Australia after local review. EU only after DSA, GDPR, ranking, and AI Act controls.
Claims that must stay true
- “Verified” means a named control ran against a named release, on a date, with a scope and expiry — not that the app is safe.
- Ranking is eligibility-first. Sponsorship is a separate labeled rail and never changes trust.
- INFORM Consumers Act is analyzed only if Aether later sells covered physical goods through high-volume sellers. It is not automatically applicable to digital listings.
- Commerce is not locked for MVP. Link-out checkout is permitted with clear merchant disclosure. Aether Checkout needs a written funds-flow memo first.
Native-store duties, web equivalents
| Duty | Native-store mechanism | Aether web equivalent |
|---|---|---|
| Malware / safety | Binary scanning | Origin bind + isolated crawl + observed inventory + continuous re-scan |
| Privacy disclosure | Nutrition labels | Structured privacy label vs observed destinations |
| Content policy | Human review | Baseline gate + risk-tiered human review |
| Payments | IAP rules | Clear price and merchant; link-out in MVP |
| Child safety | Kids category | Child-directed products excluded at launch |
| Spam / sameness | Guideline 4.3 | Sameness rule at intake |
| Post-review change | Often frozen binary | Velocity rule: material change re-review |
Excluded and gated at launch
- Financial execution (trading, transfers, custody).
- Medical diagnosis and clinical decision support.
- Legal representation.
- Gambling and real-money games of chance.
- Surveillance and stalkerware-adjacent tooling.
- Child-directed products.
- A4 continuous-autonomy agents on the public catalog.
Launch categories
Productivity and workflow, developer and data tools, creator and media utilities, education (not child-directed), and business utilities.