The new program is expected to be the first of a series of such offerings offered by VeriSign, which is still considering ways to offer a tiered seal program that could reflect different levels or types of security.
Rather than a static GIF image served from the merchant’s site, the seal is now a Flash animation or an animated GIF, served dynamically by VeriSign.
This allows VeriSign to more easily revoke TrustMarks from sites with expired certs, which could give consumers more certainty that their transmitted data will be secured.
VeriSign has plans to introduce tiered seals at some point, but these are not likely to happen until some time next year. The company has not ruled out offering seals for some of its other security services.
VeriSign, which uses the slogan The Value of Trust to market itself, comes under criticism frequently for its activities in the domain name business, where it dominates and is often seen as an unfair player.
Most recently, the company was accused of playing fast and loose with its responsibilities to the Internet with the launch of Site Finder. But this bad PR does not spill over into its security business, which is a separate division of the company.
This article was based on material originally published by ComputerWire.
