• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, Yesterday

Google is working on a method of verifying that the person entering an email address actually owns it. 

The experimental tool, called the Email Verification Protocol (EVP), was described in a post earlier this month.

Clearly, it will be a breakthrough if it succeeds, given the fact that when collecting an email address, for whatever reason — as a sign-up, sign-in, account recovery, checkout or account recovery — brands try to confirm that the email address belongs to the person entering it. 

How would this help?

“The Email Verification API is a proposal that allows the browser to communicate directly with the email provider to verify that the user owns the email address,” the post says.“Users select an email from the browser's autofill or autocomplete suggestion, submit the form, and the site verifies the email address with the provider without sending an email or interrupting the user's flow.”

Why is this necessary?

“Existing verification methods, like one-time passwords (OTPs) or email verification links (magic links), require the user to navigate away from your site,” it explains. “This disruptive process can increase the risk of the user, whether a human or an agent, abandoning their session entirely and never completing their authentication process.”

But the proposal comes with this limitation: “Email verification confirms that the user has an active session with the provider of their email address. It does not verify that your email reached the user. You may still want to send existing welcome or onboarding emails and may want or need to prompt the user to check their spam settings.”

The story first appeared on MarTech.

What do you need to do? Comment. 

“Email collection is a critical conversion point in a user's journey, and Chrome would like feedback on the proposal from sites that want to verify emails, email providers that can perform the verification, and users experiencing the process,” the proposal says.