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:
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Secure websites: In order to ensure the security of recipients' email addresses, Sender website(s) must use https:// authentication.
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Attachments: Email attachments, regardless of file type, are prohibited.
Updated Certification Requirements
Attached below are our Certification Requirements for 2020.