
Ask HN: Should email verification be mandatory during the registration process? - amadk
I am building an authentication system for my website and am trying to figure out whether I should force the user to verify their email address before they can be fully authenticated so the user can perform actions like posting, commenting, purchasing etc.<p>Most people online seem to suggest that email verification should be a mandatory step in the registration process, because if the user were to ever miss type their email address then they would be at risk of losing all their data when they logout or if another user were to login with the miss-typed email address.<p>But in practice, most websites like indie hackers, reddit, airbnb, twitch, never enforce email verification during the registration (or even purchasing) process. So how do companies like these handle situations where a user has miss-typed their email address? I&#x27;m pretty sure this has happened quite a few times on their platforms given their large user bases.<p>sources:<p>- https:&#x2F;&#x2F;ux.stackexchange.com&#x2F;a&#x2F;111023<p>- https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.forbes.com&#x2F;sites&#x2F;ianmorris&#x2F;2017&#x2F;08&#x2F;01&#x2F;when-companies-dont-verify-email-addresses-this-is-what-happens&#x2F;#a393d1d148ea<p>- https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theseventhsense.com&#x2F;blog&#x2F;email-verification-and-why-its-important
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epc
People keep using my mac.com address to register for various things, including
one bank account. For Instagram I had to register all the
mac.com/me.com/icloud.com variations as new accounts simply to stop people
from creating accounts using that address.

So, please verify the address. You can decouple it, ie allow someone to go
through the flow they're in, but only lock in the transaction (commerce,
comment, whatever) once they've verified the address. If they don't verify the
address in N hours or days, cancel the transaction.

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baash05
I say yeah. If your site has any user generated content, or has a payment
required. Allow the user to work for a few hours, or limit their ability to do
things while un-verified.

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battery_cowboy
It depends. For HN, an email is immaterial, but for Amazon shopping you want
to be very sure you have the correct email.

