A well-known brand name on a consumer mail domain reads as impersonation
The requirementstatement
A widely recognised company name paired with a free or non-corporate email domain must be treated as probable impersonation.
- Severityseverity
- BlockingBLOCKINGBreaking this rule gets the submission rejected. There is no partial credit.
- When it bitesphase
- Gates approvalapprovalGet this wrong and the brand or campaign is refused at registration.
- What is checkedobject
- brand.company_name + brand.email
- Where it liveslayer
- BrandBRAND
- How Ekas settles itdetectability
- AI · formAI_FORMExternal recordEXTERNAL_DATA
- A semantic question about what you wrote: whether a description matches a use case, whether a name looks like a filed entity. Judged by a model against written criteria. The fact that settles it lives in a register we cannot query, such as the IRS file, a postal database, or another provider’s tenant. Reported as a warning with the evidence to check, not as a pass.
- What the fix involvesfailureClass
- Fix the fieldRETRY_FIELD
- A better value in the form fixes it. Ekas can rewrite it and re-check.
- Who requires itauthorities
- AWSBandwidth
- When it appliesapplicabilityText
- Applies to every 10DLC registration.
Why this rule existsrationale
How to fix itremediation
Use an email address on the domain the named company actually operates. If you are a franchisee or an authorised reseller, register under your own legal entity name rather than the parent brand's, and use your own domain. Done when the name in the brand field and the domain in the email field belong to the same organisation.
A compliant exampleexample
company_name: Acme Coffee Co, LLC · email: support@acmecoffee.com — not acmecoffee@gmail.com
Common mistakespitfalls
- Adding a location to the name — "Acme Coffee Portland" — does not resolve it while the email domain still belongs to nobody in particular.
Check this yourselfattestation
Ekas flags this from what you submit, but the fact that settles it sits somewhere only you can reach.
If you are registering under a name a consumer would recognise, can you produce the document that authorises you to use it?
- 1Find the franchise agreement, reseller authorisation or letter of appointment that names your entity.
- 2Check the email domain on the brand belongs to the same organisation as the name in the brand field.
- 3No such document: register under your own legal entity name and your own domain instead.
What wrong looks like: A national brand name paired with a gmail.com address. A reviewer reads that as impersonation and asks for the authorisation — and adding a city to the name does not help while the domain still belongs to nobody in particular.
Notesnotes
Rules you will hit next
Other brand rules at the same severity. A registration is judged as a whole, not rule by rule.
BRD-122 is one of 196 brand rules in the 915-rule 10DLC registry. Free to cite under CC BY 4.0.