Quite a few of those to apply to the group I co - own are shown on the email notification as being "Logged in", which suggests that they are already Account holders when they apply to join. At the same time they are (sometimes) flagged up on the web UI as NC.
It isn't actually a contradiction. The NC status only means that the user hasn't confirmed that they own the email address they entered when they signed in.
When a person uses the Sign Up procedure (and enters an email address that hasn't already been registered with the system) an account for that address is created on the spot, and the user is logged into that account. The user of that new account can set a password and other items in the account's settings and profile, can find an join (or apply to join) groups via the web, even create groups.
However, that account remains NC until the person receives and replies to the confirmation request sent to that email address. This prevents accidents (or abuse) that would send group messages to an address that this user does not own.
