On Wed, 2009-11-18 at 09:23 -0500, Andrew Ballard wrote: > On Wed, Nov 18, 2009 at 9:07 AM, Ashley Sheridan > <ash@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > I think that people removing themselves from mailing lists is a little extreme. I wouldn't remove myself just because I thought I was being tracked. > > You might not, but some people will. One (of many) of the problems > with that approach is that the same technique has been used by > spammers to validate which addresses actually get delivered and read. > > > There is another way to track reading of emails though. Microsoft Outlook created something called read receipts. Users still have to accept the read receipt to be sent to the sender, so it might be a slightly more obtrusive way of finding out who read what, and afaik, it only works on the first read of an email. I don't know exactly how they are formed, but I believe it is some form of special attachment to the email that is recognised by some email clients. > > > > Thanks, > > Ash > > http://www.ashleysheridan.co.uk > > This is just an additional header or two at the top of the mail > message. I'm not positive, as I've never used them, but look up > "Read-Receipt-To" and "Disposition-Notification-To". This approach > allow the user to have total control over whether they wish to notify > you. Keep in mind that 1) not all clients recognize these headers, and > 2) many people again will choose to say "No". > > Andrew > Yeah, it's a shame, spammers are ruining a lot of good things about email. The problem really is that email as a standard is pretty old and has quite a few exploitable areas. I guess until email2 these things will continue to plague us! Thanks, Ash http://www.ashleysheridan.co.uk
