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Frequently asked questions

  • I am looking for a domain name registrant. Where can I look it up?

    The Whois is an easy-to-use tool for checking the availability of a .nl domain name. If the domain name is already taken, you can see who has registered it.

    On the page looking up a domain name you will find more information about what a domain name is, how the Whois works and how the privacy of personal data is protected. Alternatively, you can go straight to look for a domain name via the Whois.

  • I would like to transfer my domain name to another registrar. What is the procedure?

    To get your domain name transferred, you need the token (unique ID number) for your domain name. Your existing registrar has the token and is obliged to give it to you within five days, if you ask for it. The procedure for changing your registrar is described on the page transferring your domain name.

  • The details registered about me/my company are incorrect or out of date. How can I get them updated?

    To update the contact details associated with your domain name, you need to contact your registrar. Read more about updating contact details.

  • Why is my domain name in quarantine?

    When a domain name is cancelled, we aren't told the reason, so we can't tell you. You'll need to ask your registrar. The advantage of quarantine is that, if a name's cancelled by mistake, you can always get it back.

    One common reason is that the contract between you and your registrar says you've got to renew the registration every year. If you haven't set up automatic renewal and you don't renew manually, the registration will expire.

  • Ik heb een klacht over mijn provider/registrar. Kan ik daarvoor bij SIDN terecht?

    Wanneer je een klacht hebt over of een geschil met je registrar dan zijn er verschillende mogelijkheden om tot een oplossing te komen. Hierover lees je meer op pagina klacht over registrar. SIDN heeft geen formele klachtenprocedure voor het behandelen van een klacht over jouw registrar.

  • What conditions do I have to meet as a registrar?

    Would you like to be able to register domain names for customers or for your own organisation by dealing directly with SIDN? If so, you can become a .nl registrar. Read more about the conditions and how to apply for registrar status on the page becoming a registrar.

More frequently asked questions

Add a verified logo to your business mail

New internet standard BIMI makes e-mail security visual

Abstract illustration of digital envelope
  • Tuesday 21 February 2023

In recent years, the use of open internet standards to increase e-mail security has really taken off. More and more organisations are using DMARC, DKIM, StartTLS and SPF. And now there's another new standard: Brand Indicators for Message Identification, or BIMI for short. Introduced in 2020, BIMI provides a mechanism for displaying an organisation's verified logo in mail recipients' mailboxes, so they can see at a glance that the mail is authentic.

How does BIMI work?

Like all other e-mail standards, BIMI involves the inclusion of a TXT record in your organisation's DNS configuration.For example:

IN TXT "v=BIMI1; l=https://subdomein.example.nl/afbeeldingen/mijnlogo.svg;"

The logo has to be in the form of a so-called 'pure' SVG file. In other words, it has to consist entirely of vectors, not pixels. The receiving mail service provider can then verify the authenticity of an inbound message and display the appropriate logo.

The big advantage of BIMI over other standards is that the visual confirmation of sender authenticity makes the sender's mail stand out in the recipient's mailbox. With so many people's mailboxes full to overflowing, distinctiveness is a valuable characteristic.

Supplement to DMARC

BIMI isn't a standalone concept. Any mail sender that wants a verified logo displayed with their messages must have an active 'Quarantine' or 'Reject' DMARC policy. In other words, if you don't use DMARC, you can't use BIMI either. BIMI is therefore a standard for organisations that already support e-mail security.

BIMI requires a Verified Mark Certificate (VMC) confirming that the logo really does belong to the mail sender. All verified logos have to be registered trademarks as well. That creates a problem for Dutch organisations: although VMCs can be issued for European trademarks, the Benelux Office for Intellectual Property (BoIP) doesn't yet support VMC technology. That's a barrier to BIMI use for SIDN as well. BIMI has already been technically enabled for sidn.nl, but SIDN's logo is Benelux-registered. Another issue is that not all logos are mailbox-compatible: many are elongated linear designs that can't comfortably be accommodated in the circular logo spaces supported by most mail service providers.

BIMI adoption

It remains to be seen how BIMI adoption progresses in the years ahead. The process is likely to be hindered by the need for a registered brand, and for verification. In practice, those obstacles are likely to mean that BIMI is used only by larger organisations that already have international registrations. That's in marked contrast to other open standards, which are suitable for use by almost all organisations. What's more, acceptance of BIMI is at the individual mail provider's discretion. So, for example, Google accepts BIMI, but Microsoft doesn't. How long it'll be before all the major mail service providers support the standard is impossible to say. Especially given that many providers have already developed their own logo display systems. To sum up, BIMI can be a useful supplement to the existing standards, but its success depends on various conditions being met, particularly in the fields of brand registration and support by mail service providers.

Mere information about BIMI is available here.