User trust at the heart of the latest CSA Summit in Cologne

From 22 to 24 April, Cologne hosted the Certified Senders Alliance Summit on the theme of “Trust fuels the future”. The event marked the 20th anniversary of the initiative.

Corporate communications have changed dramatically over the last 20 years with the rise of social networks. For example, Instagram now has more than 2 billion monthly users, YouTube more than 2.5 billion and Facebook more than 3 billion. These platforms were all launched between 2004 and 2010. While they have become an integral part of companies’ communications plans for addressing their users, the use of email is still very high, as there are still so many uses for email: sending email campaigns, newsletters, invoices or for example order confirmations. According to Statista, the overall volume of emails increased by 4.3% in 2023 compared with the previous year, with almost 347.3 billion emails sent worldwide every day. Another fact: on average, a person receives around 121 emails a day. These figures underline that email is not about to disappear.

Gartner nevertheless points out that concerns about email security are growing, with few companies escaping security incidents, with increasingly sophisticated phishing attacks using malicious links or attachments, for example, and data losses often linked to careless behaviour or human error. With this in mind, every year CSA brings together experts from the email ecosystem to discuss best practices and solutions for improving email quality and trust. The event is organised around a series of workshops, sessions, conferences and masterclasses.

Nameshield, which sponsored the event, pointed out that there can be no email security without secure domain names, which are critical business assets, and without a robust, high-performance DNS infrastructure. Email security therefore depends on the choice of your domain name provider and the cyber-security solutions it is able to offer its customers. These include the DMARC protocol, which protects users against fraudulent messages. Customised brand extensions also known as dot brands are another way of building brand confidence in the run-up to the next round of new generic extensions scheduled for April 2026.

Contact your Nameshield consultant for more information on all our solutions.

Schmidt launches its new website in dot brand: Home-design.schmidt

Schmidt is one of the first French brands of kitchens, but also the first kitchen furniture export company in France.

Schmidt group has decided to launch its new website in « .brand » (dot brand), .schmidt and thus has joined many big companies which have made this bet, like BNP Paribas (mabanque.bnpparibas), MAIF (voyagepro.maif), Club Med (corporate.clubmed) or the latest, SNCF (oui.sncf).

Schmidt chose to regroup its activity under the « home design » designation which describes well its industry. The company is not only dedicated to the kitchen world but also proposes bathrooms and “custom-made” furniture for the entire house: dressing, TV furnitures… all with a design touch.

The domain name home-design.schmidt allows on the one hand, to optimize the SEO and on the other hand, to facilitate its development and its international communication. After its launch in Great Britain at the end of April, the website arrives in Belgium, and will continue with Spain, Italia and Switzerland by July the 4th.

The domain name home-design.schmidt is easy to recognize and to remember for general public.

dot brand - Home-design.schmidt website
Home-design.schmidt website

But what is the benefit for brands to have their own extension?

In 2013, some companies (including some thirty French companies) wished to have their own « .brand » extension, in order to capitalize on their leading brand. Most of them wanted to secure and protect their naming spaces (to limit intermediaries in the chain of actors involved on a domain name registration). The purpose is also to have a domain name really distinctive and reassuring for the final consumer. The brands fight against cybersquatting, but this is an endless war. It represents an important annual budget and doesn’t limit the damages enough. The message of the brands owners of a « .brand » (dot brand) is the following: If you’re not on my « .brand » website, then you don’t buy the products or services of my brand.

This practice to communicate in « .brand » isn’t known enough by the general public. Of course, the consumers’ awareness should be increased in order to use extra caution during their navigation, and that means the domain name verification.

So having its « .brand » is a differentiating factor and will be more and more used for marketing purposes.

.brand - ma.cuisinella website
ma.cuisinella website