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Gmail Gets Blue Check Marks—That Don’t Cost $8 a Month

The announcement comes comes after Elon Musk’s radical overhaul of Twitter’s system.

Google announced Wednesday that it has started rolling out blue check marks for Gmail so that users can “identify messages from legitimate senders versus impersonators.” The feature builds on tech that Google started testing in Gmail three years ago called Brand Indicators for Message Identification (BIMI). “Strong email authentication helps users and email security systems identify and stop spam, and also enables senders to leverage their brand trust,” Google wrote in a blog post announcing the update. “This increases confidence in email sources and gives readers an immersive experience, creating a better email ecosystem for everyone.” Google added that the rollout would take up to three days starting Wednesday. It comes after Elon Musk’s radical overhaul of Twitter’s blue check mark system. Where it once indicated that a Twitter user had a verified identity, the badge is now available to anyone willing to pay $8-a-month, predictably sparking a slew of hoaxes and imposters on the site.