{
  "id": "BRD-132",
  "slug": "brd-132",
  "title": "The website domain must relate recognisably to the brand name",
  "statement": "The registered website's domain must bear a recognisable relationship to the legal name or the DBA.",
  "rationale": "A reviewer confirms a brand exists by opening its website, and a domain with no visible connection to the name gives them nothing to confirm — they cannot tell a rebrand from a borrowed site. Honest causes are everywhere: a company that acquired a better domain, a practice trading under a founder's name on a descriptive URL, a store on a platform subdomain.",
  "layer": "BRAND",
  "layerSlug": "brand",
  "object": "brand.website vs brand.company_name / brand.dba",
  "severity": "HIGH",
  "detectability": [
    "AI_FORM",
    "CRAWL"
  ],
  "failureClass": "RETRY_FIELD",
  "authorities": [
    "Twilio",
    "Bandwidth"
  ],
  "applicabilityText": "Applies to every 10DLC registration.",
  "universal": true,
  "remediation": "Register the domain the business actually trades under, and make sure that domain's home page names the business in its title or header. Where the domain genuinely differs from the name, add the trading name to the DBA field so the two can be connected. Done when a reviewer landing on the site can see the registered name on it.",
  "example": "company_name: Acme Coffee Co, LLC · website: https://acmecoffee.com",
  "pitfalls": [
    "A platform subdomain such as a myshopify.com store is the common version of this, and it fails for a second reason as well — it is not the brand's own domain."
  ],
  "phase": "approval",
  "automated": true,
  "url": "https://ekas.io/rules/10dlc/brand/brd-132/",
  "markdown": "https://ekas.io/rules/10dlc/brand/brd-132.md",
  "registry": "https://ekas.io/rules/10dlc/",
  "updated": "2026-07-25",
  "licence": "CC BY 4.0 — https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"
}