I was so eager to actually receive that Certificate, I'd probably even hang it on a wall. At least something to actually verify you're sending valid e-mail. To me, this Return-Path Certification, sounded like you had to meet many technical requirements, perhaps even pass a test. Microsoft agrees with Validity, since their documentation states you'll receive better inbox-placement if you have the Return-Path Certification. offers tools to give ESP's insights in deliverability (inbox placement) and other statistics. I guess E-mail Monopoly was too obvious for a name.
The good man told me that Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, AOL and Verizon were sharing a virtual community, named CoreSeeds. On March 10th 2020, I had a demo-call with a sales person from Validity Inc., at that time, they also used Return-Path as their name. It means that smaller ESP's are pushed away, adding to the monopoly position of these five. Both the amount of e-mails and their market share grows every year, which is worrying. An immense amount of 306.4 billion (306.400.000.000) e-mails will be sent in 2020 by only five different companies.
