If you've ever pasted v=DMARC1; p=reject; into a TXT record and moved on with your life, here's something worth two minutes: the spec behind that record just changed. Not the syntax — the actual standard.
The old situation
For over a decade, DMARC lived in RFC 7489, published back in 2015 as Informational — meaning it documented existing practice rather than being a formal Internet Standard. Every DMARC implementation since then has effectively been building against a well-written but non-binding memo.
What changed
The IETF's DMARC working group (nicknamed "DMARCbis" internally — more on that name in a second) split the spec into three separate documents, all promoted to full Standards Track:
