VMC / Verified Mark Certificates

VMC certificates allow you to display your logo next to your name in the sender field of an email. The recipient can then clearly identify the sender thanks to prior authentication. This is the equivalent of the green checkmark on social media.

* Compliant e-mail applications: yahoo!, Fastmail, Gmail, iOS 16 and Mac OS Ventura, laposte.net webmail, SFR Mail.
E-mail applications pending compliancy: Comcast, Seznam.cz.

How does it work?

VMC is part of the BIMI (Brand Indicator for Message identification) initiative whose goal is to guarantee an enhanced email experience for both businesses and consumers. The main purpose being the quick identification of an e-mail sender and the certainty the e-mail is legitimate.

Pre-requisites

DMARC compatibility

BIMI standard requires the domain to be DMARC compliant. DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance) is an email authentication, policy and reporting protocol that allows organizations to protect their domain against unauthorized use — including spoofing and phishing..

This process can take weeks or months, depending on the size of your organization. So it’s best to get started right away. See the documentation on this subject.

A registered trademark

The logo displayed on the e-mail client is not chosen at random. It must be a registered as a trademark with one of these offices:

• FOR EUROPE:
  • France - Institut National de la Propriete Industrielle
  • Europe - European Union Intellectual Property Office
  • Germany - Deutsches Patent- und Markenamt
  • Spane - Spanish Patent and Trademark Office O.A.
  • Benelux - Benelux Office for Intellectual Property
  • Denmark - Denmark Ministry of Culture
  • Sweden - Swedish Intellectual Property Office
  • Swiss - Swiss Federal Institute of Intellectual Property
  
  
• FOR UNITED KINGDOM:
  • UK Intellectual Property Office
  
  
• FOR THE REST OF THE WORLD:
  • USA - United States Patent and Trademark Office
  • Canada - Canadian Intellectual Property Office
  • Japan - Japan Trademark Office
  • Australia - IP Australia
  • India - Intellectual Property India
  • Korea - Korean Intellectual Property Office
  • Brazil - Instituto Nacional da Propriedade Industrial
  • New Zealand - Intellectual Property Office of New Zealand

A clear link must be established between the sender organisation and its logo. Whitout that registration, which will be checked during the audit process, the certificate won't be issued.

Government Marks

Government agencies do use registered trademarks. Instead, they use government marks authorized and protected by government agencies.

VMC now authorizes the use of government marks registered in the Official Journal or in one of the following administrative directories in addition to the directories listed above.

• FOR EUROPE:
  • France - Bureau de la propriété littéraire et artistique. A minimum period of 5 months is required for a trademark filing. See the INPI documentation on this subject.
  
  
• FOR THE REST OF THE WORLD:
  • Netherlands - Government of the Netherlands

The SVG format

Your logo must be available in SVG Portable/Secure (SVG-P/S) format.

Warning: you won't be able to obtain this format via a vector application. You'll have to do it in several phases: first create your logo in SVG Tiny 1.2 format then use a text editor to modify it 'manualy' to get a BIMI compliant version.
Your logo must also:

• be in vector format
• be square; the final display will be circular, so center it accordingly
• have a solid background to ensure consistent display across all email clients
• Do not exceed 32 KB

You can follow this documentation to create you logo.

VMC benefits

VMC is a major progress in the e-mil secure and identification. The benefits are numerous:

• instant identification of a sender via its logo
• guarantee the e-mail is legitimate
• stand out: your trademark will pop out among the other e-mails
• protection against spoofing and phishing

Logo hosting

Sectigo offers to host the logo associated to your VMC certificate. The advantages:

• Following your certificate reissuance or renewal, Sectigo automatically pushes the latest version of your files to its hosted server
• Sectigo provides space to host the logo
• Sectigo provides file locations and detailed instructions on pointing your Domain Name System (DNS) records to the hosted file

Technical information

	Sectigo VMC
	buy
Price	£1,200
Number of logo per certificate (1)	1
Additional SAN	£1,080
Average delivery time (2)	10 business days
Warranty	$0
Free reissue(3)	Lifetime
Money back guarantee	-
Data Sheet

(1): A certificate needs to be purchased for each logo you might want to display
(2): Indicative delivery times that can be impacted by occasional disruptions. Consult the up-to-date situation of each supplier
(3): The logo cannot be modified via reissuance