On Wednesday, May 20, 2026 at 2:02:14 AM UTC+2 Sam Goto wrote:

*Contact emails*
[email protected]

*Explainer*
https://github.com/samuelgoto/email-verification-protocol


Why not https://github.com/WICG/email-verification-protocol ?
I see that those two explainers are different.. What's preventing aligning 
them?
 



*Specification*
Per TAG feedback, we broke the specification into two parts:
An IETF backend specification here: https://dickhardt.
github.io/email-verification/draft-hardt-email-verification.html
And a corresponding W3C frontend specification which we will provide as we 
go through the Origin Trial and see the API design settle.

*Demos*
https://code.sgo.to/2024/10/25/verified-email-autocomplete.html

*Summary*
EVP (email verification protocol) helps users create, access and recover 
accounts by providing cryptographic proof of ownership seamlessly rather 
than email OTPs manually. It requires website authors, email providers and 
browsers to participate.

*Blink component*
Blink>Identity 
<https://issues.chromium.org/issues?q=customfield1222907:%22Blink%3EIdentity%22>

*Web Feature ID*
Missing feature

*TAG review*
https://github.com/w3ctag/design-reviews/issues/1169 

One of the main pieces of feedback was to take part of the spec to IETF 
(which would be able to assess parts of the proposal better), which we took 
by writing and circulating the following draft, as well as starting to find 
the appropriate groups for broader review: https://dickhardt.
github.io/email-verification/draft-hardt-email-verification.html

*TAG review status*
We requested an early TAG review and got an "ambivalent". We will request 
another TAG review or reopen it as the design settles.

*Goals for experimentation*
There is much that we'd like to learn in origin trials, because there are 
multiple moving parts here. 

First, we'd like to gather evidence of developer demand and API fitness: is 
autocomplete a good entry point? what kinds of forms and UXs are out there? 
does the benefit developers get outweigh the cost of implementation? 

Second, we'd like to gather evidence if email providers are incentivized 
too. What's in it for them? Is the backend API appropriate? 

Third, we'd like to gather data on how users interact with the UX 
implementation: will users accept the prompt? do they expect the token to 
be shared during form submission or email selection? 

Fourth, we'd love to learn if other browsers empathize with the user and 
ecosystem pain too, and if the implementation choices we made are 
transferable to their architectures too. 

Fifth, more broadly, email verification is at the center of a lot of 
identity flows, so we'd like to learn how it might relate to other 
mechanisms, such as federation, phone number verification and 
password/passkey management.

*Risks*




*Interoperability and Compatibility*
*No information provided*

*Gecko*: Defer (https://github.com/mozilla/standards-positions/issues/1316) We 
filed for an early review before we had all of the information for Mozilla 
to make a proper assessment. We think we understand the proposal better now 
than we did 6 months ago, so we are planning to re-open the standard 
position request and try to offer some of the clarity that was lacking.

*WebKit*: No signal (https://github.com/WebKit/standards-positions/
issues/578) We haven't formally gotten a review from Webkit, but we got 
some informal feedback last TPAC with their preference to augment WebOTP / 
one-time-codes and OTPs and activate IMAP clients (of which there are 
fewer) rather than email providers. We believe this alternative isn't 
necessarily mutually exclusive and can work symbiotically with what's being 
proposed. We expanded on that here: https://github.com/
samuelgoto/email-verification-protocol#webotp-otps-vs-evts-and-imap

*Web developers*: Positive This API requires participation by websites and 
email providers. We successfully ran a devtrial with a few partners which 
we expect will join us running an original trial. Based on what we heard so 
far, we are optimistic this will hit a sweet spot with website authors, but 
 we'd like to gather further evidence of developer demand and API fitness 
in an actual production setup.

*Other signals*:

*Ergonomics*
We think a declarative autocomplete API strikes the right balance for 
developers and users. There are a series of other variations that we have 
explored and are open to revisiting based on developer feedback that we 
listed here: https://github.com/samuelgoto/email-verification-
protocol#website-api

*Activation*
This proposal requires incentivizing and changing websites, email 
providers, browsers and, to a smaller extent, user behavior. Much of the 
incentives are going to be pulled by the availability of email providers, 
which we think might be feasible to bootstrap. More on the economics here:
https://github.com/samuelgoto/email-verification-protocol#
activation-considerations

*Security*
https://github.com/samuelgoto/email-verification-protocol#
security-considerations

*WebView application risks*

Does this intent deprecate or change behavior of existing APIs, such that 
it has potentially high risk for Android WebView-based applications?
*No information provided*


*Ongoing technical constraints*
*No information provided*

*Debuggability*
Still being developed. Basic error messages in the developer console 
available.

*Will this feature be supported on all six Blink platforms (Windows, Mac, 
Linux, ChromeOS, Android, and Android WebView)?*
No. We are planning to start on desktop first and then introduce Android. 
We aren't sure if it would be possible/useful to support WebView.

*Is this feature fully tested by web-platform-tests 
<https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src/+/main/docs/testing/web_platform_tests.md>?*
Not currently available.

*DevTrial instructions*
https://github.com/WICG/email-verification-protocol/blob/main/HOWTO.md

*Flag name on about://flags*
#email-verification-protocol

*Finch feature name*
*No information provided*

*Non-finch justification*
*No information provided*

*Requires code in //chrome?*
True

*Estimated milestones*
Origin trial desktop first150Origin trial desktop last153

*Link to entry on the Chrome Platform Status*
https://chromestatus.com/feature/5205725253074944?gate=5146029401964544

*Links to previous Intent discussions*
Intent to Prototype: https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/d/
msgid/blink-dev/68bb77c8.050a0220.257801.0191.GAE%40google.com


This intent message was generated by Chrome Platform Status 
<https://chromestatus.com/>.

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