Standardizing Contact Sharing via ContactPoint Schema in Gmail

Google Workspace Developers Q&A
1

Standardizing Contact Sharing via ContactPoint Schema in Gmail

Hi everyone,

I’m looking to gauge interest or see if there is any movement on expanding Gmail’s support for Schema.org structured data to include Person and ContactPoint types.

Currently, sharing contact information via email is a high-friction experience. We are relying on outdated, attachment-based methods (vCards) or forcing users to manually parse/copy-paste signature data into their contacts. Given that Gmail already has a mature, secure, and widely used implementation for EventReservation, FlightReservation, and Order schemas, it seems like a logical next step to formalize contact sharing.

The Proposal:

I’d like to see Gmail support the rendering of a “Contact Summary Card” triggered by valid ContactPoint or Person JSON-LD embedded in the email body. This would enable a one-click “Add to Contacts” action, similar to how ViewAction currently works for reservations.

Benefits:

  • Security: Eliminates the need for attachments (.vcf), reducing the attack surface for potential malicious payloads.

  • Data Integrity: Allows developers to pass structured, verified contact information directly into the user’s Google Contacts without the fragility of OCR or string-parsing email signatures.

  • Standardization: Aligns with the existing schema.org ecosystem that Google already promotes for search and SEO.

Has anyone explored using the existing schema framework to facilitate contact injection, or is there a specific hurdle (other than the standard sender verification requirements) that prevents Person schemas from being rendered as actionable cards?

Would love to hear from others working on Workspace integrations if this would improve your workflows as well.

Where to post:

  1. Go to discuss.google.dev.

  2. Browse the Categories list.

  3. Select Workspace (this is the primary home for Gmail, Calendar, and Drive API discussions).

  4. If you don’t see a specific sub-category for “Gmail,” look for “General” or “Integrations” within the Workspace section.

Does this focus capture the technical angle you were looking for, or should we adjust the language to be more focused on the API/JSON-LD implementation?

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