Frequently asked questions

The Council for Global Brand Building (CGBB) is an open, non-profit association, founded in Hong Kong, that sets standards for how trust is assessed and rated in corporate and business settings. It was initiated by iMpact and announced in Geneva in September 2026, during the WTO Public Forum. Its Chinese name is 全球化品牌信任促進會 (品信會).

Many companies, especially those going global, find that what they are good at does not automatically translate into how they are seen. CGBB calls this the trust gap:

Capability is not perception. Strong products, technology and operations do not automatically shape how a company is seen.

Awareness is not trust. Being known is the start of the work. Being trusted, and being able to show it, is the goal.

Entering a market is not belonging to it. Selling into a market and becoming a trusted part of it call for different capabilities.

CGBB’s standards, research and membership exist to help close that gap, so that trust can be assessed, built and shown.

In the age of AI, trust is critical. Geopolitics, AI-generated content and automated agents make it harder for buyers, partners and the public to know who they are really dealing with. Trust is fast becoming the most important element of business and society.

CGBB offers the CGBB Website Trust Credential as a public service: a simple, verifiable signal that helps brands build trusted relationships across borders, and makes business more efficient, because trust that can be checked saves everyone time.

The CGBB Brand Trust Baseline is the CGBB standard for assessing how far a brand can be trusted. It is built from CGBB research and collaborative industry analysis and covers five sections: identifiability and consistency; reviews and delivery record; compliance and governance; transparency and response; and responsibility and localisation, with 15 core indicators in all.

Each of the 15 indicators is rated 0–5 from evidence checks, or ND when there is not enough information. Each section is the mean of its indicators, and the score is 20 times the mean of the five sections, from 0 to 100, with an overall status from “Trust foundations lacking” to “Trust well established”. Major risks are never averaged away: they cap the score. The rules are fixed, so the same evidence always gives the same result.

How the Baseline is scored →

Yes. From 2027 CGBB will publish a preliminary ranking of brands that have completed a Trust Review with evidence support of at least medium, ordered by their Baseline score and updated every year. The ranking method will be refined with first-year results.

CGBB plans to publish its first whitepaper, setting out the academic foundations for assessing trust, at the end of November 2026. The first ranking, which will rate leading brands against the standard, is planned for 2027.

Email secretariat@cgbb.org.

Any company, brand or organisation can join. CGBB Basic Membership is free and includes the Website Trust Credential, the CGBB Member badge and the Brand Trust Baseline self-test. CGBB Advanced Membership (US$315 a year) adds a full Trust Review; brands scoring 80% or higher become Verified Trusted. You can apply through the membership application form.

Yes. Apply on the website, then confirm your domain in your member account to get the same file.

So that nobody, human or agent, can sign up a brand without its knowledge. The contact person confirms, and the Secretariat reviews every application.

The file is locked to one domain. Proving control of that domain stops anyone else from claiming your brand’s record.

Applying takes a few minutes, and publishing the domain code takes your web team a few minutes more. Secretariat review usually takes 1–3 business days.

It is a small, machine-readable file (trust.json) that a brand publishes at yourdomain.com/.well-known/trust.json so that AI agents can check its credentials. CGBB signs every file and keeps a live record at api.cgbb.org/verify. Every approved member with a confirmed website domain gets a free CGBB Member file, which confirms membership and domain control. Advanced members scoring 80% or higher on the comprehensive Trust Review receive the CGBB Verified Trusted level.

That your brand is an approved CGBB member and controls the website domain. It is not a certification, rating or endorsement of your products, services or conduct. Trust scores come only with the paid comprehensive Trust Review.

Yes. CGBB membership is free, and so is the CGBB Website Trust Credential. We provide it as a public service to support trusted relationships and more efficient business worldwide. Advanced membership, which adds the comprehensive Trust Review and the Verified Trusted level, is paid.

It gives AI agents an independent, machine-readable trust signal they can check, and gives your domain a verifiable public record at api.cgbb.org. Nobody can guarantee how an AI system ranks or cites a brand, so treat the credential as a free, quick step that works alongside good content, structured data and llms.txt.

At https://yourdomain.com/.well-known/trust.json. Anyone can then check it at https://cgbb.org/verify/?d=yourdomain.com.

For as long as the membership is active. The live record at api.cgbb.org always shows the current status, and an updated file can be downloaded at any time.

Agents that research suppliers, partners or products can read /.well-known/trust.json on your website, check it against the CGBB registry, and see that your brand belongs to a council built around trust standards. It is a simple, verifiable signal in an area where agents have very little to go on.

Yes. CGBB welcomes AI agents. An assistant such as ChatGPT or Claude can apply through the CGBB connector (api.cgbb.org/mcp) or the instructions at cgbb.org/llms.txt. A person at the brand confirms by email, the brand proves its website domain, and the Secretariat reviews the application. Approved brands receive a signed CGBB Website Trust Credential. See how it works.

They can copy the file, because it is public by design, but a copy is worthless. Each file is locked to the exact domain it was issued for, so a copy on another website fails the check immediately.

No. CGBB digitally signs every file with a private key that only CGBB holds, and publishes the matching public key on cgbb.org. Changing a single character, such as the score or the expiry date, breaks the signature.

Every file links to its record at api.cgbb.org. Agents check that live record directly, so the CGBB registry, not the file itself, is the final word on whether a brand is verified today.

Anyone can look the domain up in the public CGBB registry. A brand that claims to be verified but has no live record is exposed by that check, and CGBB may act against misuse of its marks.

CGBB withdraws the record in the registry. The file on the brand’s website then fails verification, even though it still looks unchanged. Files also expire after a set period and are renewed after each annual review.

No. The Verified Trusted file is only issued to organisations that hold an active Advanced membership and score at least 80% on the comprehensive Trust Review.