Google will add blue verification ticks for Gmail users

May 18, 2023

Google posted on its official blog page that it will add a blue checkmark next to the name of each Gmail subscriber to verify their identity and reduce scams. The blue checkmark is free at the moment and will be available to all Google Workspace Customers. It will automatically appear next to companies that have adopted Gmail’s existing Brand Indicators for Message Identification (BIMI) feature.

The BIMI feature was rolled out in 2021 by Google, and it requires senders to use strong authentication to verify their brand logo to display their logo as an avatar in emails. The email receivers will now use the checkmark icon from senders that have adopted the BIMI feature to know that the mail is coming from a legitimate source.

The blue checkmark is Google’s way of providing users with an extra layer of protection against scammers and fraudsters. “Strong email authentication helps users and email security systems identify and stop spam and also enables senders to leverage their brand trust. This increase confidence in email sources and gives readers an immersive experience, creating a better email ecosystem for everyone”, - the company wrote in a blog post.

Blue checkmarks have been making headlines for the past several months, largely because of the controversies that follow the implementation on Twitter. Currently, other social platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn, TikTok, Pinterest, and YouTube have adopted the measure to combat scams.