Brand Indicators for Message Identification

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Brand Indicators for Message Identification, or BIMI (/ˈbɪmi/), is a specification allowing for the display of brand logos next to authenticated e-mails.

Design

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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.[1][2] To implement BIMI, companies need a valid DMARC DNS record with a policy of either quarantine or reject, an exact square logo for the brand in SVG Tiny P/S format,[3] and a DNS TXT record for the domain indicating the URI location of the SVG file. The only supported transport for the SVG URI is HTTPS.[1] The BIMI DNS record is in the following format: 

default._bimi   TXT   "v=BIMI1; l=https://example.com/logo.svg; a=https://example.com/image/certificate.pem"

(The a= part is optional. When present, it defines an evidence document; the only current form of this file is called a Verified Mark Certificate (VMC), described below. When absent, the BIMI record is considered self-asserted.) Additionally, services such as Gmail require that a VMC be acquired and presented with the TXT record in order for the brand logo to be displayed in the inbox.[4] 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.[5] To query the value of the default._bimi TXT record for a given domain, one can use the dig command-line tool. For example, the following command will query the TXT record for the example.com domain: dig +short default._bimi.example.com TXT.

Implementations

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A working group of several companies named "BIMI Group" has formed to develop and support standardization of BIMI in IETF.[6] As of June 2023 the following e-mail services have implemented support for BIMI:[7]

Email clients supporting BIMI
Client Requires VMC Notes
AOL Mail Unknown [8]
Apple Mail Yes [9][10]
Fastmail No [11][12]
Gmail Yes [13][14]
La Poste No [15] Domains without VMCs must be submitted and manually verified by La Poste.[15]
Yahoo! Mail No [16] Only for bulk messages from high-reputation domains[16]
Halon Yes

History

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The BIMI Working Group was founded in 2019[17] and the first Internet Draft was published in October 2021.[18]

Benefits

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BIMI provides several advantages for organizations implementing email authentication:[19]

  1. Increased Trust and Brand Recognition – BIMI displays verified brand logos directly in recipients' inboxes, building trust and visibility before an email is opened.
  2. Higher Engagement and Deliverability – Recognizable brand logos help improve open rates and click-through rates, while BIMI requires a strong DMARC policy that enhances email authentication and deliverability.
  3. Protection Against Phishing and Spoofing – BIMI enforces domain authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC) and verified mark certificates (VMC), helping to prevent misuse of brand identity in fraudulent emails.

Contributors

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The contributors of BIMI specifications, called the BIMI Group, also called Authindicators Working Group,[17][20] include:

  • Agari
  • Comcast
  • Google
  • LinkedIn
  • Return Path from Validity
  • Valimail
  • Verizon Media (Yahoo)

References

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  16. ^ a b Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
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