A sole proprietor site must not present as a registered company
The requirementstatement
Where the brand is registered as a sole proprietor, the website must not hold itself out as an LLC or incorporated entity.
- Severityseverity
- HighHIGHRejected by at least one carrier or provider, and a common cause of failure at the rest.
- When it bitesphase
- Gates approvalapprovalGet this wrong and the brand or campaign is refused at registration.
- What is checkedobject
- brand website + brand.entity_type
- Where it liveslayer
- WebsiteWEBSITE
- How Ekas settles itdetectability
- AI · crawlCRAWL
- Needs your live site or policy page fetched and read. Ekas crawls it the way a reviewer would.
- What the fix involvesfailureClass
- Fix the websiteTERMINAL_WEBSITE
- The fix lives on your site. No amount of rewording the form clears it.
- Who requires itauthorities
- TCRTwilio
- When it appliesapplicabilityText
- Applies when the brand is a sole proprietor.
Why this rule existsrationale
A site displaying "Acme Coffee LLC" behind a sole proprietor registration tells the reviewer the tier is wrong — the business evidently is a registered entity and should have registered as one. The mismatch is caught on the website even when the brand form looks internally consistent.
How to fix itremediation
Either register the brand as the company the website advertises, using its EIN, or remove the corporate designation from the site if it is not accurate.
Rules you will hit next
Other website rules at the same severity. A registration is judged as a whole, not rule by rule.
WEB-018The site must be readable in EnglishHighHIGHWEB-019The site must stay live for the whole vetting window, not just at submissionHighHIGHWEB-026The site must look established rather than erected for the registrationHighHIGHWEB-028A campaign landing page is not the brand websiteHighHIGHWEB-030E-commerce brands need a published catalogHighHIGHWEB-032The business name must be visible on the page, not only in the markupHighHIGH
WEB-152 is one of 93 website rules in the 915-rule 10DLC registry. Free to cite under CC BY 4.0.