A blue checkmark on Gmail means companies have successfully verified their identity through BIMI, showing they are a legitimate sender.
It seems like blue checkmarks are at the center of everything lately, don’t they?
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Gmail announced in a blog post it will start displaying a blue checkmark to go along with the profile image of companies that have verified their identity through BIMI (Brand Indicators for Message Identification.) This means that Gmail has verified the sender is legitimate, and not a scammer.
The BIMI standards require companies to authenticate that the brand logo they’re using as their email avatar actually belongs to them. Companies that have already adopted BIMI will automatically receive the checkmark.
When a user hovers over the blue checkmark, Gmail will display a message that says “this sender of this email has verified” that they own their domain and the logo they use in the profile image.
“Strong email authentication helps users and email security systems identify and stop spam, and also enables senders to leverage their brand trust,” the company wrote in the blog post. “This increases confidence in email sources and gives readers an immersive experience, creating a better email ecosystem for everyone.”
Now this is a blue checkmark I can get behind as it will help many users quickly identify scammers and probably save a few of us from getting hacked or worse.
Gmail is rolling out verified checkmarks starting today across both Workspace accounts and personal Google accounts, so you might start seeing blue checkmarks invading your emails very soon.
If you are a Workspace admin and interested in setting up BIMI and getting verified, check out this section of the Google Workspace Help site.