Like many creative thinking types, I often have more ideas than I know what to do with; some I would like to think I create someday; others just take up space and cause mental irritation because I know I probably won't get to them. Here is one of those -
Targus Info has made quite a name for itself and quite a business providing data validation, their services becoming the Akami of data validation for lead generation companies. I'll have to ask Dave over there if their service offers standard USPS look-up, but that's another topic.
What would help, and Targus could do this, but most likely a company such as Datran looking to expand their revenue stream should offer this, is an email validation service. This is nothing new; when I did email collection through a registration process, I wanted a better system for validating names. It's pretty easy to see if the domain exists and has a mail server set up on it. Finding a way to determine whether the actual address works and should count as valid is something else.
The idea that would seem to work is for Datran or a similar firm to allow others to send over an email address and have them score it for them. The first level of scoring would be whether that address exists in their database or ever has. They would them help shed light on that name by providing any deliverability information - name is valid and receiving email; name was in database but unsubsribed (meaning it is still valid); name is in database but not active (not opened email); name is a spamtrap do not send, etc. With their experience, they could probably add value to names that aren't in their database as well by applying learnings across names as a whole, e.g. whether certain strings in the name suggest it to be fake, or the structure of it to be good (the lead gen provider might pass in first and last name too).
Datran or others probably wouldn't want to share too much of the specifics but they could help come up with a score that would let those who just received the email gain some insight into the validity of the lead. Ideally, some third party would do this and Datran along with the other big mailers would participate, making their data accessible to the third party. The subscription revenue would be split among the data providers (with protections so that their data wouldn't be abused, competitor safegaurds, etc.). Given the forming a single organization (like Targus) who has access to the data owners (ex, Wireless carriers) takes more time, which is why the data carrier (Datran) could do this if they wanted.
