How does Extended Validation differ from existing certificate validation procedures?
Extended Validation Certificates are available only to corporations and government agencies until further guidelines can be developed by the CA/B Forum to allow eligibility for non-corporate entities such as sole proprietorships and general partnerships. For those eligible, the application process for receiving an Extended Validation Certificate from one of the recognized Certificate Authorities such as Network Solutions is both deeper and more thorough than existing certificate-issuance procedures. Companies applying for Extended Validation SSL Certificates will be required to provide far more detailed information about their business, their Articles of Incorporation, financial history, and so on. Validation and confirmation of this additional data is expected to both enhance the authority of and consumer confidence in the certificates and also, crucially, to make it all but impossible for fraudulent or criminal applicants to receive a certificate.
