In 2014, the Online Trust Alliance increased weighting on phishing and fraudulent email protection at the top-level domain, and implementation of Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance (DMARC) policies in scoring websites for the annual Honor Roll. After earning this honor [last year](http://www.messagesystems.com/blog/ota-honor-roll-2013/ "MessageSystems.com makes OTA’s 2013 Online Trust Honor Roll"), we wanted to strive for “valedictorian” this year by continuing to stay on top of these security upgrades. 

- We made our **Privacy Policies** a bit clearer, and we’re already planning on improving them further for next year’s awards.
- We took our website’s score from a 95/100 to a perfect 100 by **upgrading our SSL Certificates to TLS 1.2**.
- We even strove for extra credit above and beyond the norms by having our product teams work toward **perfecting all of our DMARC policies**.

We’re also always working toward improving the experiences of all users of our products and sites. In the coming year, we’re adding **several awesome new features** to the websites and upgrading them to be fully [responsive](http://www.messagesystems.com/blog/coding-responsive-email-templates/ "Why I Hate Coding Responsive Email Templates")! These things aren’t required by OTA’s Honor Roll this year, but we feel that they may be in the near future. In fact, the 2014 Trust Audit now evaluates variances between websites and their mobile apps on the iOS and Android platforms, in the interest of security controls and privacy best practices.

## Thank You to the Online Trust Alliance

Message Systems strives toward a more trustworthy internet. Receiving this honor from the OTA is a welcome pat on the back for those efforts and a significant achievement. Overall only 30.2% of the 800+ sites made the Honor Roll, with 22% making the Honor Roll for the past two years.  Conversely, nearly 53% failed in one of the three categories.  With this in mind, we will continue to push the envelope year after year.

In addition to reaching this goal ourselves, several of our clients have also been awarded Honor Roll status in 2014. They include:

### Top Scores

<table align="center"><tbody><tr><td style="padding: 20px; border: none; vertical-align: top;"><figure id="attachment_4368" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-4368" style="width: 109px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="/images/blog/eee41832629a-twittericon.png"><img loading="lazy" class="wp-image-4368" src="/images/blog/eee41832629a-twittericon.png" alt="twittericon" width="109" height="109" data-wp-pid="4368"></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-4368" class="wp-caption-text">Top Overall Score</figcaption></figure></td><td style="padding: 20px; border: none; vertical-align: top;"><figure id="attachment_5006" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-5006" style="width: 109px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="/images/blog/dc1844d6e4cc-AG.jpg"><img loading="lazy" class="wp-image-5006 size-full" src="/images/blog/dc1844d6e4cc-AG.jpg" alt="American Greetings logo" width="109" height="109" data-wp-pid="5006" sizes="(max-width: 109px) 100vw, 109px"></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-5006" class="wp-caption-text">Top Internet Retailer</figcaption></figure></td></tr></tbody></table>

### Top Social

<table align="center"><tbody><tr><td style="padding: 20px; border: none; vertical-align: top;"><figure id="attachment_5011" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-5011" style="width: 109px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="/images/blog/94b4a1036cc0-fb_icon_325x325.png"><img loading="lazy" class="wp-image-5011 size-full" src="/images/blog/94b4a1036cc0-fb_icon_325x325.png" alt="fb_icon_325x325" width="109" height="109" data-wp-pid="5011" sizes="(max-width: 109px) 100vw, 109px"></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-5011" class="wp-caption-text">2014 Social Top 50</figcaption></figure></td><td style="padding: 20px; border: none; vertical-align: top;"><figure id="attachment_5012" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-5012" style="width: 109px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="/images/blog/b4a9992dec61-linkedin.jpg"><img loading="lazy" class="wp-image-5012 size-full" src="/images/blog/b4a9992dec61-linkedin.jpg" alt="linkedin" width="109" height="109" data-wp-pid="5012" sizes="(max-width: 109px) 100vw, 109px"></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-5012" class="wp-caption-text">2014 Social Top 50</figcaption></figure></td></tr></tbody></table>

### OTA Members

<table align="center"><tbody><tr><td style="padding: 20px; border: none; vertical-align: top;"><figure id="attachment_5014" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-5014" style="width: 109px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="https://www.sparkpost.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/paypal_2014_logo.jpg"><img loading="lazy" class="wp-image-5014 size-full" src="https://www.sparkpost.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/paypal_2014_logo.jpg" alt="paypal_2014_logo" width="109" height="109" data-wp-pid="5014" sizes="(max-width: 109px) 100vw, 109px"></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-5014" class="wp-caption-text">2014 OTA Member</figcaption></figure></td><td style="padding: 20px; border: none; vertical-align: top;"><figure id="attachment_5016" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-5016" style="width: 109px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="/images/blog/585e5eed5562-Marketo-Logo.jpg"><img loading="lazy" class="wp-image-5016 size-full" src="/images/blog/585e5eed5562-Marketo-Logo.jpg" alt="Marketo-Logo" width="109" height="109" data-wp-pid="5016" sizes="(max-width: 109px) 100vw, 109px"></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-5016" class="wp-caption-text">2014 OTA Member</figcaption></figure></td><td style="padding: 20px; border: none; vertical-align: top;"><figure id="attachment_5017" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-5017" style="width: 109px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="/images/blog/f2161e3331e6-zyngalogo1.png"><img loading="lazy" class="wp-image-5017 size-full" src="/images/blog/f2161e3331e6-zyngalogo1.png" alt="zyngalogo1" width="109" height="109" data-wp-pid="5017" sizes="(max-width: 109px) 100vw, 109px"></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-5017" class="wp-caption-text">2014 OTA Member</figcaption></figure></td></tr></tbody></table>

Congratulations to all our clients, especially Twitter and American Greetings for achieving the best Honor Roll scores!

For more information about the Online Trust Alliance Honor Roll, check out our [press release](http://messagesystems.com/resources/press-releases/message-systems-named-top-trusted-website-online-trust-alliance-second-year). You can also read the 2014 OTA Honor Roll Report [here](https://otalliance.org/system/files/files/initiative/documents/2014otahonorroll.pdf). For a visual summary of top takeaways from this year’s report, check out the following infographic.

_Find out more about how you can better protect your brand with DMARC email authentication. Watch [**The Benefits of Adopting DMARC Email Authentication**](http://messagesystems.com/resources/videos/why-you-should-adopt-dmarc-email-authentication?src=Blog&pc=BlogDL-DMARCWebinar) webinar today!_