Read Reciepts in Outlook 98

[babylon5guy]

Hi,
Does anyone know if you send a email with "read receipt" turned on, and if that email is forwarded, does it report back to the sender each person that opens it?
TIA

[mairving]

Nope. It is also optional if you send it to people using OfficeXP or someone over the Internet, as to whether they want to send you a read receipt.

[babylon5guy]

Thanks Mairving, I was afraid of that. Did you ever hear of a program ReadNotify? It supposedly lets you do that. I'd like to know if anyone has used it and if they liked it.

[doctorgonzo]

Once e-mail gets sent outside of a local network and through the web, read receipts become iffy. Sometimes they work, sometimes not, depending on the recipient's e-mail client.

[babylon5guy]

Thanks doctorgonzo,
I was afraid of that. This company says they can track it for you. What do you think?
http://www.readnotify.com/readnotify/text/

[doctorgonzo]

Well, I just signed up, and it confirmed my suspicion: this service adds a little script to every email that automatically alerts ReadNotify when an e-mail is opened. Not only won't that always work, the same as read receipts, but getting an e-mail like that might tick people off. It is no less obvious than a normal read receipt. Attached is the little picture that appears at the bottom of each e-mail you send with the service.

If you need to track e-mail after it leaves your gateway because it is very important, that is a sign that you may need to rethink your use of e-mail. E-mail is like writing a letter on a postcard: anybody and everybody can see what is written on it at any time. It shouldn't be used for extremely important information without some changes.

[babylon5guy]

Thanks doctorgonzo,
That was the exact question I emailed them about, here is their reply:

Hi Greg, It's up to you whether or not you tell the recipient. If you add ".silent.readnotify.com" on the end, this overrides your default settings and uses only our techniques which don't alert the recipient. Yes - the endings are removed before delivery. Send some tests to yourself if you're wondering: our free trial lasts for 14 days or 25 emails (whichever comes 1st) - we don't bill you when it's over, but you can elect to subscribe ($24 for a year) if you want to keep using our services. Kind Regards, Chris Drake,

Did you try the silent.readnotify.com? When I send a read receipt I sure don't want the person at the other end to know I have attached read reciept. I understand what you are saying about emails, I don't do it very often, but there are times I do want to know if someone has read my email. I know I hate it when people do it to me, so I try not to do it unless I feel it is absolutely necessary. Some people do it on every email they send out which is rediculous. I never realized how many people do that till someone on this board recommended the program WatchYourBack. I have it strip out every read receipt. You can even have it send back a notification "deleted without being read" even though you did which is really neat.

[doctorgonzo]

When trying the silent method, there is no banner at the bottom, so users wouldn't be made aware that it was happening, unless the script makes the e-mail jump to the beginning, which it did for me.

It probably wouldn't work for any e-mail clients that can't display HTML. Most e-mail programs have options that can be set to stop these scripts as well. It isn't as foolproof as they make it out to be.

[babylon5guy]

Thanks for your input doctorgonzo, I'll try the free trial period and see if it's anything I'm interested in.