Return Path has updated the Certification Requirements. The document includes comprehensive information for senders who are interested in understanding Certification: what the program is, what the audit process is like, and the necessary requirements to become and stay Certified. 

Highlights of the new standards include: 

1. Domain ownership: To be approved into the program, Certification Senders must prove ownership of their domains. WHOIS domain verification may be supplemented with a DNS token authentication to prove this ownership.

2. Privacy policy: To be approved into the program, Senders must have a privacy policy; however, it is no longer required at every point of email address collection.

3. Point of collection: To be approved into the program, Senders no longer need to specifically disclose the types of email they are sending at the point of collection of email addresses.

4. Third-party mail: Senders can now send third-party content from their Certified IPs. Third-party mailers, as a business entity, continue to be ineligible for Certification.

5. Secure websites: In order to ensure the security of recipients' email addresses, Sender website(s) must use https:// authentication.

6. Attachments: Email attachments, regardless of file type, are prohibited.

Updated Certification Requirements

Attached below are our Certification Requirements for 2020.