Google to support Common Mark Certificates for BIMI

We’ve discussed the value and difficulties of BIMI in the past, but it appears that there is some growing support for the standard that might make it more relevant to small and medium businesses – Google has announced that it will support Common Mark Certificates and display the BIMI logo for companies opting this route.

What is BIMI?

BIMI is an Internet standard for taking ownership of email and securing your outbound brand that also provides clear indication of trust by displaying the Brand Owner’s Logo in the UI of the email client. To have your Brand Logo displayed by your email, you need:

  • To be DMARC compliant
  • To have DMARC policy of Reject
  • To have a compatible BIMI logo in DNS
  • To have certified ownership of that brand logo

The big value of BIMI is that the logo in the UI provides reassurance that the email does indeed come from you and that you are a trusted sender.

Why is this a big deal?

Until this announcement, the only type of certification for brand ownership was a Verified Mark Certificate (VMC). VMC’s initially cost between $1000 and $1500 per year, per domain and required the owner to obtain an official government trademark on the logo and branding. If you broke your email across multiple domains or manage multiple sending brands, a VMC could get expensive quickly. In addition, many smaller businesses would find governmental registration of their trademark difficult, and the expense might price them out of the verification altogether.

Common Mark Certificates (CMC) are another method of certifying your logo and protecting your brand from being used in fraud and phishing, while providing the benefit of display in the recipients’ inboxes. Because CMC’s do not require official trademark, the hope is that CMC’s will reduce the cost of certification and broaden support and use of BIMI.

The Caveat

Don’t rush out today and grab a CMC. Why? Because you can’t. The BIMI workgroup only announced support recently and vendors have yet to define the product and pricing for a CMC. Most likely pricing will be very similar to that of a VMC, so even with the “greater flexibility” to obtain a mark certificate, the cost might be prohibitive.

How can MxToolbox Help?

Regardless of whether or not you are adopting BIMI, adopting DMARC and getting DMARC to a strict policy is imperative for good email delivery.  MxToolbox Delivery Center has everything you need to improve your email delivery:

  • Manage SPF, DKIM, DMARC to improve compliance and reduce the threat of fraudsters and phishing campaigns using your domain. DMARC will get you prepared for BIMI.
  • Review daily volume and SPF, DKIM, and DMARC compliance rates to ensure the best email deliverability.
  • Gradually move your DMARC policy to “Reject” to enable better inbox placement opportunities and reduce the risk of phishing and fraud using your domain. Also, it is the next step to become BIMI compatible
  • Check and maintain your BIMI setup, including certificate configuration and alerts to when certificates will age out.

We also provide free tools!  To get started with BIMI, check out our Knowledge Base and free BIMI Lookup tool.