TABLE OF CONTENTS
What are Brand Indicators for Message Identification (BIMI)?
A Verified Mark Certificate is a digital certificate that is issued by a reliable certificate authority that helps verify logo ownership. Prior to receiving a VMC, make sure that your logo is a registered trademark. VMCs are crucial Brand Indicators for Message Identification that allows your logo to get displayed next to the sender field while sending a client email. It helps the user to see the mark and they automatically know that the sender is authentic.
A VMC confirms that your organization is the legal and authentic owner of your brand logo. By having a verified mark certificate free, your organization is protected from spammers and other malicious users from illegally utilizing the brand logos that they don’t own.
Although VMC is optional, this verified mark certificate bimi is mandatorily required for several clients including Gmail.
What are Verified Mark Certificates?
VMC for BIMI is a certified brand indicator of the Brand Indicators for Message Identification (BIMI). Google has recently announced its adoption of the Brand Indicators for Message Identification (BIMI) standard within Gmail. This announcement has made Google the highest-profile mail service. There are several other service providers who are joining in on this initiative such as Fastmail, Yahoo Mail, Comcast, Seznam, and Valimail. Being a significant step towards mass adoption of verified mark certificate dmarc, will change the face of cybersecurity soon.
BIMI standard allows the logos to be rendered with the sender in an email. It helps the user be assured of the authentication of the email. DMARC VMC BIMI goes hand in hand to protect you from spammers and phishing attacks. VMC works in sync with BIMI by offering a verification mechanism that confirms the particular logo belongs to the sender itself.
The benefits of Verified Mark Certificates are enormous and helpful to protect you from hackers and spammers. The combination of BIMI and VMCs working together help companies boost their recognition and engagement rates by an average of 10%. The added benefit of VMC comes with security and protection. By using verified logos, spammers and phishers can’t use your logos inappropriately.
Let us take you through the step-by-step guide about everything you need to know about verified mark certificates and the process of implementing your VMC quickly and easily.
Step-by-Step Guide to implement Verified Mark Certificates
Step 1: Be DMARC Complaint
The very first step in preparing your VMC is by becoming DMARC compliant. What exactly DMARC is? DMARC stands for Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance. With the advent of digitalization, everything has shifted to online platforms. Due to this users are exposed to cybercrimes more than ever before. DMARC is an effective approach to integrating your email that confirms its authenticity. It works best with Sender Policy Framework (SPF) and DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM). To know about DMARC in detail, check out the blog on DMARC Setup Guide: How to Add DMARC Step by Step.
Installing DMARC service and dmarc record checker for VMCs will benefit the entire ecosystem of email as a whole. Since it makes sure that each message undergoes validation checks, that helps create a higher level of security. It protects your email with the best security mechanism. With our efficient DMARC plans, you can get your email secured within no time.
Step 2: Use a Trademarked Logo
After your email is fully configured, it’s time to move on to the next step. First things first, the logo must be trademarked. It is important that the logo is trademarked because it is harder to spoof them.
Here is a list of the trademarked offices that are approved for VMCs.
· The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO),
· Canadian Intellectual Property Office,
· European Union Intellectual Property Office,
· UK Intellectual Property Office,
· Deutsches Patent- und Markenamt,
· Japan Trademark Office,
· Spanish Patent and Trademark Office O.A.,
· IP Australia.
· Korean Intellectual Property Office
· Instituto Nacional da Propriedade Industrial (Brazil)
· Intellectual Property India
Step 3: Format Your Logo
Make sure that your logo is in the Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) format. Also, it must adhere to the SVG Portable/ Secure profile. After changing your logo’s format, it is advisable to abide by the following guidelines if you want your logo to get displayed optimally.
· Use a 1:1 aspect ratio.
· Centre your image
· Use a non-transparent background
Step 4: Purchase Your VMC
The next step is to purchase your VMC. Since most organizations have multiple domains and it is equally important to secure all the domains. Multi-SAN VMCs are recommended for those who have several domains. If there are numerous logos, then you must have a VMC for each one of the domain’s protections.
After the process of VMC buying is over, then you have to go through the validation process. This procedure comprises the following steps:
· Confirm your logo’s registered trademark.
· Giving notarized copies of ID documents.
· A meeting with any member of the certificate authority’s validation team.
· Providing complete ID documents.
After these steps are successfully completed then your VMC will be issued.
Step 5: Upload the VMC to your webserver
Now you have to upload the certificate to your server. After your VMC is issued, you will get an email with an attached file of the entity certificate Privacy Enhancement Mail (PEM) file.
Step 6: Add the BIMI TXT record to your domain
The last and final step is to add your BIMI record in the form of a DNS TXT record with the help of your domain provider.
Conclusion!
VMCs and BIMI are some explicable additions to the email world. They take the cyber security world to the next level. Now that we have provided you with a comprehensive guide on how to get Verified Mark Certificate (VMC), you will be able to enjoy the marketing and security benefits with GoDMARC. With our award-winning team, you can avail yourself of the best services and avail of premium benefits.
