Email Verification

I’m the owner of a Gmail address that bears my name, in the form first.last@gmail.com.

Many others who share my name, have addresses that are slight variations of mine, e.g. first.last2@gmail.com or first3.last@gmail.com, or even first.p.last@gmail.com. You get the idea.

Often when these people signup at websites, they mistype their email address—and accidentally enter mine.

On account creation, modern websites send a verification email to the registered address, containing a link that the user must click before they can use the service. This verification-loop confirms that the person actually owns the email address they entered. You’ve probably experienced this yourself.

If I’ve directed you to this article, it’s likely because your company does not verify email addresses, such that I’m currently experiencing one or more of the following problems:

• I’m receiving notifications, alerts, user-related communications (often containing personal data), and I’ve been unable to stop them because either:
  • Your communications don’t have an unsubscribe link, or
  • There is an unsubscribe link, but requires login to confirm
• Your service doesn’t allow me to reset the account password simply by knowing the email address, i.e. it’s requiring me to provide some user-specific information I wouldn’t know.

In other words, I am stuck, have wasted time that I shouldn’t have wasted, and need your help.

But just as importantly, I need that you get the message to whoever in your company is responsible for the website, insisting that they need to add email address verification to the account creation process, to prevent this from happening in the future.

Thank you.

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