We’ve joined the Authentication and Online Trust Alliance, alongside companies like Bank of America, IronPort, Verisign, ReturnPath, and Symantec.

The AOTA works hard to promote the widespread use of email authentication, in order to keep email safe. If you don’t know what authentication is, it’s basically a way to show your email is not a forgery. This helps you get through some spam filters, and lets your customers know your email’s authentic. Big ISPs have been hinting that one day, they’ll throttle or block non-authenticated emails. MailChimp comes with authentication built-in, and we include multiple authentication formats (DKIM, SenderID, SPF, and Domain Keys)

Why’d we join the AOTA? Three reasons:

1. More email service providers (ESPs) need to join, to help determine standards. Authentication is different when you’re one big bank sending transactional emails, versus an ESP sending millions of emails a day on behalf of thousands of different customers. If ESPs don’t join in the discussion, our customers could suffer.
2. Look at the ginormous companies on that members list. Who’s representing small business? Reputable email campaigns aren’t just for ginormous global corporations, you know.
3. As authentication technology changes, we want to be the first to know, so that our customers’ campaigns get delivered.