If, somehow, you aren’t tired of hearing about Twitter’s ever-changing rainbow nation of checkmarks, Google could be about to change your mind. Blue verified checkmarks are set to begin appearing next to senders’ names in Gmail, the company announced yesterday. Those companies that have already adopted Gmail’s existing Brand Indicators for Message Identification (BIMI) feature will automatically have the checkmark appear next to their name in others’ inboxes.
(Blue) Da ba dee da ba di
The point, obviously, is to slow down impersonation. Considering that BIMI verification requires companies to set up strong authentication rather than splash out on an $8 subscription, it might just work. Once a company has its blue checkmark, hovering over it will supply information such as “the sender of this email has verified that they own ‘X’ and the logo in the profile image.”
In the announcement post, Google said “Strong email authentication helps users and email security systems identify and stop spam, and also enables senders to leverage their brand trust. This increases confidence in email sources and gives readers an immersive experience, creating a better email ecosystem for everyone.”
Read More: Passkeys launch means you no longer need a password for your Google account
For now, Google only has the single blue checkmark in use, covering all ranges of verification. Whether this feature will expand to include new, multi-coloured checkmarks, we don’t yet know. Our guess is ‘no’ because the idea isn’t one that sparks thoughts of ingenuity. We’re sure Google will have a similar mindset.
Gmail will begin rolling out the new checkmarks across personal and Workspace accounts later today, meaning you’ll probably be seeing them quite soon.
