Behind the scenes there has been a lot of discussion on the implementation of 'Borrowed Brands'. The purpose of this post is to provide clarification and guidance to addon and theme developers in naming their marketplace submissions and guidance to PRB members and administrators in reviewing the names of submissions.

Whilst the overall preference is that developers should avoid using 'Borrowed Brands' and 'show some creativity in their naming of marketplace submissions, especially in the naming of themes', we recognise that in some cases using the name of a third party brand is unavoidable. Particularly with addons, there are situations where the inclusion of the third party brand in the title may actually be helpful to site owners looking for particular functionality.

So, to clarify how 'Borrowed Brands' will be applied:

1. Where possible, avoid 'Borrowed Brands' in marketplace item names, particularly in theme names where we expect developers to show some creativity.

2. If you really must use a third party brand name, then the emphasis must be firmly on your own brand, not on the third party brand. Examples:
(UNACCEPTABLE) - "Bootstrap Table"
(UNACCEPTABLE) - "Bootstrap Table by My Brand"
(UNACCEPTABLE) - "Bootstrap Table for concrete5"
(UNACCEPTABLE) - "concrete5 Bootstrap Table"
(UNACCEPTABLE) - "Fantastic Bootstrap Table"
(OK) - "My Brand Bootstrap Table"
(OK) - "Something Else that takes the emphasis Bootstrap Table"
(PREFERRED) - "My Brand Fantastic Table"
(PREFERRED) - "Fantastic Table"
Obviously the balance between ok and preferred will depend on how descriptive the third party brand name is of its functionality.

3. A third party brand name in a marketplace name will only be accepted where it helps explain what the marketplace item does.

4. Try to avoid names that become cumbersomely long as a consequence of prefixing a long borrowed brand with your own brand name. If its long and cumbersome, its probably a sign that you need to be more imaginative in naming your addon or theme.

5. If you use a third party brand name in a marketplace item name, you must make it clear, early in the marketplace text, who the owner of the brand is and provide a link.

6. Legacy marketplace items being updated and resubmitted for the new 5.7+ marketplace must comply with this, even if it means renaming them. Absolutely no exceptions.

7. Names that are solely comprised of the third party brand or where the emphasis is on the third party brand will only be accepted when its not actually a third party brand! i.e. The developer is an employee of the brand owner or contracted by the brand owner to solely represent them, so they are actually using their own brand name.

8. Some third party brand names prohibit the use of their brand name in other product names. It is the developers responsibility to ensure they do not break any brand name usage policies.

9. If the owner of a third party brand complains about the use of their brand name in a marketplace item name, the offending addon or theme will be immediately removed from the marketplace.

10. If something slips through because we just didn't notice the use of a third party brand name before approval, that does not give a developer any rights to continue using that name. Once identified and notified, if it isn't changed promptly, the item will be removed from the marketplace.

I think that's enough for now and makes the implementation of the policy clear.

Developers - if in doubt, please PM me a proposed name early in your development, before you have too much work invested in it.

So I get this for the most part, but for a block that is literally just a Vimeo embed (like hereNTs), why would you call it anything BUT that?

Too non-specific: Video Embed
Too vauge: Vidtastic
Too pointless: My Company Embederific
All anyone wants to see: Vimeo Embed

Just to be clear, we're all playing by these new rules now. We had to rename "Are you human captcha" to "PortlandLabs Are you human captcha" (although why its not showing up that way in the marketplace search page is a bug - check the detail).

While it does mean some of the time it's going to be ganky like that (it's a free add-on, they knew we were going to release it, etc) it does create a more honest marketplace where its clear we're not Are you human, and they're not on here supporting that thing either.

BTW, it would be nice to add a reference to that rule (and to that thread) on the marketplace submission guidelines :)