Public Service Announcement: DidTheyReadIt.Com Tracking Your Email Practices

[Ed Hansberry]

<a href="http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/technology/2004-05-20-email_x.htm">http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/technology/2004-05-20-email_x.htm</a><br /><br />DidTheyReadIt.com is selling a service where you can send an email to [email protected] and you will know:<br /><br />• When they opened it<br />• How many times they opened it<br />• Where they were located when they opened it, based on the IP address their client used and some geographical lookups.<br /><br /> :evil: Fortunately, there is an easy way around it if you have good filtering capabilities. Just add a filter to block all emails that have the following code in them. Mailwasher easily identified it. &lt;img src="http://didtheyreadit.com/index.php/worker?code= <br />Of course, your Pocket PC Inbox won't trigger this as it doesn't understand HTML and some email clients like Outlook 2003 block the automatic downloading of HTML images. This sort of invasion of my privacy really irritates me, to say nothing of the fact that if you use this service, you are allowing them to see valid email addresses of people you are sending emails to. I know some companies are already using DidTheyReadIt to fire their newsletters from. To those companies, let me clue you in on <i>my</i> terms of service. "If I am your customer and I get a newsletter from you that passed through their server or any similar service, I will no longer be your customer." :deal:

[Eitel]

Or just use Outlook 2003 and it will block the html in the email. ;)

[Brad Adrian]

...I will no longer be your customer."
...and I tell everybody I know that you are using this spyware!"

[tourdewolf]

ditto! if I get emails from companies I have subscribed to they may as well change my email address to "[email protected]"

[Kati Compton]

Thunderbird lets you read HTML emails but block the images. That's what I do.

[Ed Hansberry]

Or just use Outlook 2003 and it will block the html in the email. ;)
Will it block the image if it is from a "safe sender" though, or a friend?

Also, you can block the following 3 IP addresses and it will prevent the mail coming in. Great in products like Open Relay Filter at www.vamsoft.com

Pinging dtri3.rampellsoft.com [69.90.152.226]
Pinging dtri2.rampellsoft.com [69.90.152.225]
Pinging dtri1.rampellsoft.com [69.90.152.224]

[Mark Kenepp]

I would assume that in many businesses, confirmation of receipt and opening of email would be a great asset.

In my office, we at times both email and overnight hard copies so that we get signatures proving that items have made it to the intended recipient. Having the same confirmation for email would reduce paperwork and shipping costs.

It sounds to me like this is the electronic equivalent of creating a solid paper trail.

[Kati Compton]

I would assume that in many businesses, confirmation of receipt and opening of email would be a great asset.
Yes. But at other times, maybe you get sent a message that you have time to read but not respond to. Or you don't want to confirm that you're reading spam? There's always plusses and minuses to any technology. I prefer when someone sends me email and "requests" a return receipt. I get a pop-up asking me to confirm whether or not I want to send one. If I don't have time to deal with the email right then, I might wait to send it until I do.

[Brad Adrian]

I would assume that in many businesses, confirmation of receipt and opening of email would be a great asset.
But it should be the recipient's choice as to whether that receipt is returned. Just like with a registered letter coming via snail mail; it's up to me to decide whether or not to sign for it and allow the sender to be notified.

This is like a lot of other issues that we're faced with as we become prolific users of electronic media. I think we need to make sure that we don't assume that the rules of engagement are any different than with more traditional media, like snail mail and the telephone. This is just another in a long line of tools that marketing people come up with without considering its impact on society.

[DrtyBlvd]

I know some companies are already using DidTheyReadIt to fire their newsletters from. To those companies, let me clue you in on my terms of service.

Ed - Who, exactly :?:

[DavidRoss]

I would assume that in many businesses, confirmation of receipt and opening of email would be a great asset.
Just like with a registered letter coming via snail mail; it's up to me to decide whether or not to sign for it and allow the sender to be notified.


However... if you don’t sign for it, you don’t get to read it. maybe for business use a service could be used to make you "sign" for the e-mail, and then you get to read it... if you don’t have time, or you don’t want to sign for it, then you don’t get to read it. seems fare to everyone.

[Mark Kenepp]

I prefer when someone sends me email and "requests" a return receipt. I get a pop-up asking me to confirm whether or not I want to send one. If I don't have time to deal with the email right then, I might wait to send it until I do.

But it should be the recipient's choice as to whether that receipt is returned. Just like with a registered letter coming via snail mail; it's up to me to decide whether or not to sign for it and allow the sender to be notified.

I personally would not want this type of service inflicted on me either but say you worked for a big litigation firm. This could be the next step to subpoenaing someone via email
:wink:

[pschultz]

How do you filter that code with Internet Explorer? Can you even do it with Internet Explorer, or do you need another program?

[LarDude]

To play it safe, I propose that we all stick exclusively to "pine" (or better yet, "elm") for email, and surf the web only with "lynx". What say you? (I feel a revolution on the horizon). :D

[seatec]

I use read requests all the time in my company and do not always return the read notification unless it is needed. I have not enabled the auto read response in Outlook.

Ed, Yes, you can select safe senders for HTML viewing in Outlook 2003. and also safe sites. I have the post notifications from PPCT as a safe site so I can see the pictures. This is a great improvment in Outlook 2003. It was also rearranged for better viewing. It also has intregal spam/junk filtering that is fairly good if used with a virus scanner.

[Kacey Green]

So you pay $50 per billing cycle for a bad copy of the read recipt fucntion, 'cept that it will piss people off if you use it because they can't opt out like they can with a read recipt.

[Janak Parekh]

But it should be the recipient's choice as to whether that receipt is returned. Just like with a registered letter coming via snail mail; it's up to me to decide whether or not to sign for it and allow the sender to be notified.
Actually, I go farther than both you and Kati. ;) I personally will never return a receipt -- email is not an immediate or guaranteed-response medium, and shouldn't be treated as such. Otherwise, people start asking "hey, why didn't you return my receipt" if I don't get to the email. At that point, it becomes a huge hassle.

To play it safe, I propose that we all stick exclusively to "pine" (or better yet, "elm") for email, and surf the web only with "lynx".
Hey, I use a pine-like UNIX mail client (mutt (www.mutt.org)) to read my email... and it processes HTML email by piping it through lynx and converting it to plain text. :D It has features no Windows mail reader still has, like automatically setting my From: address field based on who I'm sending email to.

--janak

[freitasm]

I don't return receipts on my Outlook 2003, and I've just added this company's domain as 127.0.0.1 to my hosts file.

[Ed Hansberry]

I don't return receipts on my Outlook 2003, and I've just added this company's domain as 127.0.0.1 to my hosts file.Be sure to get the software company that wrote it too - rampellsoft.com - that is how the emails are actually routed.

[Pony99CA]

I would assume that in many businesses, confirmation of receipt and opening of email would be a great asset.
Yes. But at other times, maybe you get sent a message that you have time to read but not respond to. Or you don't want to confirm that you're reading spam?
Come on, Kati, do you really think spammers will use this service? First, they'd have to pay for it. Second, they've already been using 1x1 Web bugs for years, and this service sounds like basically the same thing.

I think this service has legitimate uses. It gives people not running their own servers a chance to track E-mail. As the article said, if I send a resume to somebody, it would give me an opportunity to see if it was really read.

I prefer when someone sends me email and "requests" a return receipt. I get a pop-up asking me to confirm whether or not I want to send one. If I don't have time to deal with the email right then, I might wait to send it until I do.
I almost always reject return receipts because Eudora puts those in my Out box (I think), requiring me to delete them. Also, many people probably turn receipts on for every E-mail, which gets annoying.

From a sender's point of view, allowing the recipient to reject the request negates a lot of the effect of having it. I would hope people only use this service for E-mail they really want to track. Because this service E-mails the sender back for every E-mail read (twice, even), someone using this indiscriminately could get twice as much junk as they sent.

Anyway, is this service really much different than people tracking your Web surfing (using cookies)?

Steve

[Kati Compton]

I would assume that in many businesses, confirmation of receipt and opening of email would be a great asset.
Yes. But at other times, maybe you get sent a message that you have time to read but not respond to. Or you don't want to confirm that you're reading spam?
Come on, Kati, do you really think spammers will use this service? First, they'd have to pay for it. Second, they've already been using 1x1 Web bugs for years, and this service sounds like basically the same thing.
Probably not. I was just indicating what I don't like about return receipts I can't opt-out of, not what I didn't like about this particular service.

From a sender's point of view, allowing the recipient to reject the request negates a lot of the effect of having it. I would hope people only use this service for E-mail they really want to track. Because this service E-mails the sender back for every E-mail read (twice, even), someone using this indiscriminately could get twice as much junk as they sent.
I get these most frequently from emails sent to me at PPCT, either people wanting to confirm that I saw that they asked to be removed from the newsletter (perfectly valid use), or people that probably have it on for every email, so random (relatively) unimportant questions have them. For important things, I always return the receipt but only when I've actually DONE the thing they're asking about. Because I *don't* want to check it, have to leave for an hour or two, come back, fix the problem, then see a message in my inbox saying "I know you read my email! Why haven't you fixed this yet???" ;)

The other type of emails that sometimes have these are work-related ones from overseas university students wanting to work for me. These emails generally start "Dear Respected Sir,". As I am not a sir, I delete them without reading them. If they want to work for me, they can do the research to find out I'm female. ;)

Anyway, is this service really much different than people tracking your Web surfing (using cookies)?
Actually, yes. Because if I'm visiting a site it's because I want to visit the site, and they are providing me useful content. The primary flow of benefit is from the site to me. With emails that have return receipts, the primary flow of benefit is from me to them.

[Ed Hansberry]

Anyway, is this service really much different than people tracking your Web surfing (using cookies)?
Actually, yes. Because if I'm visiting a site it's because I want to visit the site, and they are providing me useful content. The primary flow of benefit is from the site to me. With emails that have return receipts, the primary flow of benefit is from me to them.
And it is a simple matter in IE to disable automatic cookies. It is not a simple matter to disable these web bugs. In fact, it is darn near impossible unless you have a newer mail client that does this.

[Pony99CA]

Anyway, is this service really much different than people tracking your Web surfing (using cookies)?
Actually, yes. Because if I'm visiting a site it's because I want to visit the site, and they are providing me useful content. The primary flow of benefit is from the site to me. With emails that have return receipts, the primary flow of benefit is from me to them.
And it is a simple matter in IE to disable automatic cookies. It is not a simple matter to disable these web bugs. In fact, it is darn near impossible unless you have a newer mail client that does this.
I agree with that. I wish Eudora would allow filtering 1x1 pixel images. As it is, I have to disable Microsoft's HTML viewer (and use Eudora's) and turn off all image downloads. Of course, the next step would be to use 1x2 images.... :roll:

The most annoying spams I think I've gotten, though, were some that included JavaScript and actually opened an Internet Explorer window. I closed those immediately. Die, spammers, die! :snipersmile: :devilboy:

However, there are even good uses for Web bugs. My old company (HearMe) used them for a cool voice chat application. Someone would send you E-mail with a link to voice chat. In that E-mail was a presence indicator -- an image that showed whether the user was logged into the service or not. Too bad the company went bankrupt. :-(

Steve

[Kacey Green]

I think it rude to act solely on read recipts, I just make a mental note of it when I see one returned, the only time I act on it is if someone says they didn't get my message, (that and my current isp sends me that portion of the servers log when it sees the read requsest, which I find kind of cool. I understand that people will often not act on a message as soon as they get it, so it makes me seem impaitent if I said did you do it yet?! What I do if I saw the recipt and someone still hasn't responded or acted, I'll send another email.

[baralong]

I routinely turn off sending read and receive receipts, and all emails are treated as untrusted and images turned off in outlook.

I did find it amusing once when a cowerker sent me a database question and then walked over to see if I got it. :)

[beq]

Seems like didtheyreadit.com is making all the news, perhaps due to a particularly comprehensive (aggresive) tracking featureset? Like tracking how long you've left the email opened (by continually reloading a non-cached, non-stored animated GIF).

There have of course been many other services, like havetheyreadit.com, msgtag.com, postofficer.com, readnotify.com, returnreceipt.com, sentthere.com, trackthis.cc, etc. I haven't checked but I think every feature's been done before, though maybe not combined as aggressively?

In regards to the abovementioned idea of blocking access unless the recipient is willing to be tracked, there are also services that simply store the email content on their servers, where the sent HTML mail remotely fetches it (or the recipient must manually click a link to go to the site). So to read the content in the first place you can't avoid the tracking. Naturally such services have also touted other features like those so-called expiring/self-destructing emails and whatnot. In fact a company also recently made the news round touting these features, I forget who...