Is is possible / practical to do something with php that actually goes out and TESTS if an email address is real... (Not just verifying the text structure of an email addy)
Can you even ping an email like you can a url?
Well, the only way to do that is to send an email to the address and see what sort of reply (if any) you get. Maybe have a link in the email that the recipient can come back to to confirm their receipt.
Take a look at that : http://www.zend.com/codex.php?id=449&single=1
That's true, but it won't tell if if the only entity reading anything sent to that address is /dev/null....
