Direct Marketing Association’s (DMA’s) authentication guideline states that email authentication is one way of making the electronic marketplace more secure and improving consumer confidence in email. It simplifies and automates the process of identifying senders, and improves the likelihood that legitimate email will get through to the intended recipient.
Using a postal analogy, email authentication can assure the recipient that your return address, letterhead and personal signature are “authenticâ€; i.e., not faked. Authentication helps prove that you are who you claim to be and that you have the right to send email from your IP address – the first step in ensuring you and your offers are legitimate – not a spammer in disguise giving our industry a bad name.
There are currently two major types of interoperable email authentication systems:
1.   IP-based Solutions like Sender Policy Framework (SPF) and Sender ID Framework (SIDF) and
2.   Cryptographic Solutions like Domain Keys Identified Mail (DKIM)
The goal of each is the same: to create a public record against which to validate email messages so that the legitimacy of senders can be verified. Both technologies work to verify that the sender is authorized to send mail from a particular IP address. Authentication makes it difficult to forge IP addresses or the cryptographic signatures utilized by email authentication systems.
A fundamental difference between IP-based and cryptographic authentication solutions is that cryptographic technology protects the integrity of the email contents, while IP-based technology verifies or proves that the sender is authorized by the domain owner to send the mail.
What types of email should be authenticated?
Direct Marketing Association’s (DMA’s) authentication guideline requires that marketers authenticate ALL outbound email that they send or that their service bureaus send on their behalf.
From a practical business standpoint, even if you are not a DMA member, you should authenticate your email to ensure reliable delivery and uninterrupted workflow.
Following is a list of some of the categories of email that your organization may be sending and that need to be authenticated:
•   List Rental Email
•   Marketing & Promotional Email
•   Customer Service Email
•   Non-Bulk Corporate Communications Email
•   Email From Mobile Devices
•   Sales Email
•   Receipts or Shipping Confirmation Email
•   Monthly Statements Via Email
•   Newsletters Via Email
What are domains?
A domain name identifies one or more IP addresses. A domain name appears as part of a Web site’s URL (Uniform Resource Locator, e.g. www.company.com). Domain names use alphabetical addresses that are easier for humans to remember than numeric IP addresses.
Example
Registered domain name: company.com
Domain name: www.company.com
URL: http://www.company.com/index.html
IP address: 192.168.12.34
The Domain Name System (DNS) is an Internet directory service. DNS is where companies publish which IP addresses are allowed to send email on their behalf. DNS is flexible and allows multiple IP addresses to be assigned to a single domain name, or multiple domain names to be assigned to a single IP address. ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) is in charge of managing the DNS.
What are IP Addresses?
IP addresses, or Internet Protocol addresses, are unique identifiers that are assigned to every computer, server or other device connected to the Internet. Think of IP addresses as telephone numbers: Computers use them to locate and “talk†to each other on the Internet. A typical IP address is expressed in dot notation, e.g. 192.168.12.34. Each number in the address has a value of 1 to 255.
It is generally easier for humans to remember and use alphabetical URLs like “www.company.comâ€, rather than numeric IP addresses. So when you type a URL into your browser, your computer converts the URL into an IP address, language that computers can understand.
Example
IP address: 216.21.62.134
Domain name: www.company.com
IP addresses are managed and created by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA). Not every computer that connects to the Internet has its own static IP number (i.e. an IP address that never changes). For example, corporate networks and online services usually share a pool of IP addresses among a large number of users, and temporarily assign an IP address to a requesting computer. A temporary IP address is referred to as a dynamic address. You can check with your internet service provider or network administrator to find out if your computer uses static or dynamic IP addressing. Click here to easily look up an IP address or domain name.
How is authentication different from encryption?
Email authentication is used to verify the identity of an entity sending email. Encryption is the method of securing the contents of an email message while in transit and ensuring that only the intended recipient(s) can open and view the email message.
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