Gmail Adding Email Authenticator Feature Called BIMI

Change is coming to Gmail. Recently as a courtesy of a new agreement between Google and the AuthIndicators Working Group you’ll soon begin seeing BIMIs (Brand Indicators for Message Identification). The brains behind BIMI describe their product as an email specification that allows the use of brand-controlled logos within supported email clients.

AuthIndicators is steered by a committee of representatives from a variety of companies including Google, Fastmail, Proofpoint, Twillio, Mailchip, Verizon Media, Vaililmail, Validity, and SendGuard.

Valilmail’s Chief Product Officer and chairman of the AuthIndicators Working Group had this to say about the new standard:

“We’ve been an avid supporter of BIMI since Valilmail’s founding in 2015. With a goal to improve the ecosystem for everyone, BIMI enables brands to deliver their logos alongside email messages to billions of inboxes worldwide, increasing customer engagement with those messages and boosting brand trust.

For the brand’s logo to be displayed, the email must pass DMARC authentication checks, ensuring that the organization’s domain has not been impersonated. By displaying the sending company’s logo next to an email, BIMI provides a visual cue to the recipient that the email has been authenticated and the sender is not spoofed.”

Google’s Wei Chuang and Neil Kumaran added:

“BIMMI provides email recipients and email security systems increased confidence in the source of emails, and enables senders to provide their audience with a more immersive experience.

This is just the start for BIMI. The standard expects to expand support across logo types and validators. For logo validation, BIMI is starting by supporting the validation of trademarked logos, since they are a common target of impersonation.”

This is a superb change that is now or soon to be available to billions of inboxes worldwide with Gmail, AOL, Yahoo, and Fastmail fully onboard. If you’re not seeing the branded logos yet you will soon.