Re: E-Mail tracing notification system

In the message "Re: [Micronet] E-Mail tracing notification system",
dated 9/21/06, Peter Fong wrote:

>I found these two website http://www.pointofmail.com/ and
>http://www.readnotify.com/ which offers email tracking services.
>It surprises me that something like this exist.
>I'm not interested in using this technology, I'm just curious
>because a user have asked me about it.

   These services seem to work by embedding "web bugs" - a bit of HTML
using IFRAMEs, image links, or the like - in the email messages you
send to your recipients through their servers. Since this typically
involves modifying your recipients' email addresses in your outgoing
messages, at least one such service also offers the alternative of
desktop software to embed their HTML in those messages.

   Whatever technique they use - and this post describes a number of
possibilities <http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/?p=610#comment-1933>
- the underlying concept seems to be this: a network connection,
conveying some tracking data, is made to a server run by the email
tracking service whenever your email program - or other 'helper'
software your email program uses - processes HTML content in the
messages you receive.

   There are apparently at least several more services like these,
including <http://www.didtheyreadit.com> and
<http://www.messagetag.com/home/>.

   There are also some discussions on the web, easily identified via
your favorite search engine, about possible techniques for defeating
such tracking, as well as of the ethical or social issues they may
pose.

Aron Roberts
Information Services and Technology

>Jay Bryon wrote:
>>I was just about to say the same thing. There are a few "email
>>tracking systems" but they all pretty much use the same concept,
>>which is unreliable and by some perspectives pretty rude.
>>Email is the wrong technology to be using if you want to control
>>the dissemination of information, generally speaking/IMHO.
>>I would suggest a social rather than technical solution, as Greg does.
>>-J
>>
>>Greg Merritt wrote:
>>>
>>>On Sep 21, 2006, at 1:25 PM, Peter Fong wrote:
>>>
>>>>Hi Micronetters,
>>>>
>>>>Does anyone know if there are any email tracing programs or
>>>>systems that can keep track of emails that you have sent out?
>>>>For example, Person A sends Person B an email, then Person B
>>>>forwards that email to Person C.
>>>>Is it possible for Person A to track and find out that Person B
>>>>have forwarded the email to Person C?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>I sure hope not. A forward in most e-mail clients is pretty much
>>>a brand-new message composition with special decorations like
>>>"Fwd:" and ">".
>>>
>>>The only thing that I can think of that would come remotely close
>>>would be to include an html img tag to an image file on your Web
>>>server... and hope that B, C, D, etc. all use in-line viewing of
>>>image urls (which we hope they don't do), and that you could
>>>somehow identify B, C, D, et al. from their IP addresses (which
>>>you probably can't).
>>>
>>>Probably the most likely solution would be to ask Person B, "to
>>>whom did you forward my e-mail?"
>>>
>>>-Greg

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Received on Thu Sep 21 15:53:30 2006