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Recently at work we had a debate about what could be the best way to validate an email address for a user, for handling cases where a user registers with a wrong email (say my email is andrew123@gmail.com and i put in aandrew123@gmail.com). We came up with this solution:

  • User register an email
  • An email for the registration is sent through AWS SES. If the mail goes in permanent bounce we set this user mail as "invalid"
  • When in cart checkout, if the user mail address is invalid an alert is shown, prompting the user to check and change the email address

However i still think that a better (and simpler) approach would be to just include and activation code in the registration email. I want to know your thoughts on this, since is really scratching my head :/

Vadim Kotov
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Jimi
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    The link in the activation email is the way to go. The first method doesn't work if aandrew123@gmail.com is someone else's email address. – Federico klez Culloca Oct 22 '19 at 08:26
  • The same thing i thought, however the "excuse" from the others was "there is a small chance of this happening" – Jimi Oct 22 '19 at 08:30
  • Your rebuttal could be "why not reduce that small chance to 0 and also check that they're not **purposefully** using someone else's address?" – Federico klez Culloca Oct 22 '19 at 08:35
  • Also, if you then send marketing emails you should check with your DPO if sending them without having verified that a user really wants them (by actually validating their email) could land you in trouble with the GDPR (I'm assuming by your name that you're in the EU). – Federico klez Culloca Oct 22 '19 at 08:38
  • @FedericoklezCulloca italiano per giunta, mi fa piacere sapere che molti condividono la mia posizione (anche leggendo articoli su medium e altri forum la strada sembra essere quella), ma purtroppo l'ultima parola la ha "chi mette i soldi", che anche messo davanti all'evidenza ha scelto la seconda strada (e considera che per un momento si stava scegliendo di non fare proprio nulla!) – Jimi Oct 22 '19 at 08:45

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