Brand Indicators for Message Identification, or BIMI (pronounced: Bih-mee), is a specification allowing for the display of brand logos next to authenticated

e-mails Electronic mail (email or e-mail) is a method of exchanging messages ("mail") between people using electronic devices. Email was thus conceived as the electronic (digital) version of, or counterpart to, mail, at a time when "mail" meant ...

. There are two parts to BIMI: a method for domain owners to publish the location of their indicators, and a means for Mail Transfer Agents (MTAs) to verify the authenticity of the indicator. To implement BIMI, companies need a valid

DMARC Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance (DMARC) is an email authentication protocol. It is designed to give email domain owners the ability to protect their domain from unauthorized use, commonly known as email spoofing. Th ...

DNS The Domain Name System (DNS) is a hierarchical and distributed naming system for computers, services, and other resources in the Internet or other Internet Protocol (IP) networks. It associates various information with domain names assigned to ...

record with a policy of either quarantine or reject, an exact square

logo A logo (abbreviation of logotype; ) is a graphic mark, emblem, or symbol used to aid and promote public identification and recognition. It may be of an abstract or figurative design or include the text of the name it represents as in a wordma ...

for the

brand A brand is a name, term, design, symbol or any other feature that distinguishes one seller's good or service from those of other sellers. Brands are used in business, marketing, and advertising for recognition and, importantly, to create an ...

in SVG Tiny P/S format, and a DNS TXT record for the domain indicating the URI location of the SVG file. The only supported transport for the SVG

URI Uri may refer to: Places * Canton of Uri, a canton in Switzerland * Úri, a village and commune in Hungary * Uri, Iran, a village in East Azerbaijan Province * Uri, Jammu and Kashmir, a town in India * Uri (island), an island off Malakula Islan ...

HTTPS Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) is an extension of the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP). It is used for secure communication over a computer network, and is widely used on the Internet. In HTTPS, the communication protocol is enc ...

. The BIMI DNS record is in the following format: default._bimi TXT "v=BIMI1; l=https://example.com/image.svg; a=https://example.com/image/certificate.pem" Additionally, services such as Gmail require that a Verified Mark Certificate (VMC) be acquired and presented with the TXT record in order for the brand logo to be displayed in the inbox. These factors alone will not guarantee a BIMI logo will be displayed as heuristics (like spam and spoofing) and reputation will be a key part in BIMI validity.

Support

A working group of several companies named "BIMI Group" has formed to develop and support standardization of BIMI in

IETF The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) is a standards organization for the Internet and is responsible for the technical standards that make up the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP). It has no formal membership roster or requirements and a ...

. As of the October 3, 2020 the following e-mail services are implementing support for BIMI: * Google's Gmail *

Yahoo! Mail Yahoo! Mail is an email service launched on October 8, 1997, by the American company Yahoo (2017–present), Yahoo, Inc. The service is free for personal use, with an optional monthly fee for additional features. Business email was previously av ...

Verizon Media Verizon Communications Inc., commonly known as Verizon, is an American multinational telecommunications conglomerate and a corporate component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The company is headquartered at 1095 Avenue of the Americas in ...

(including

AOL AOL (stylized as Aol., formerly a company known as AOL Inc. and originally known as America Online) is an American web portal and online service provider based in New York City. It is a brand marketed by the current incarnation of Yahoo (2017� ...

and

Netscape Netscape Communications Corporation (originally Mosaic Communications Corporation) was an American independent computer services company with headquarters in Mountain View, California and then Dulles, Virginia. Its Netscape web browser was onc ...

e-mail services) * Fastmail Gmail began displaying verified trademarked logos on emails in July 2021. Apple has added support for BIMI in

Apple Mail Apple Mail (officially known as Mail) is an email client included by Apple Inc. with its operating systems macOS, iOS, iPadOS and watchOS. Apple Mail grew out of NeXTMail, which was originally developed by NeXT as part of its NeXTSTEP operating ...

with

iOS 16 iOS 16 is the 16th and current major release of the iOS mobile operating system developed by Apple for its iPhone line of products. It was announced at the company's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) on June 6, 2022, as the successor to ...

iPadOS 16 iPadOS 16 is the fourth and current major release of the iPadOS operating system developed by Apple for its iPad line of tablet computers. The successor to iPadOS 15, it was announced at the company's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) on ...

macOS Ventura macOS Ventura (version 13) is the nineteenth and current major release of macOS, Apple's desktop operating system for Mac computers. The successor to macOS Monterey, it was announced at WWDC 2022 on June 6, 2022, and launched on October 24, 2 ...

, and

iCloud iCloud is a Personal cloud, cloud service from Apple Inc. launched on October 12, 2011 as a successor to MobileMe. , the service had an estimated 850 million users, up from 782 million users in 2016. iCloud enables users to sync their data to t ...

References

{{reflist Email authentication