Landing Gear

When I use Outlook with my POP3 mail with my Verizon ISP, I have a couple of options under "Voting and Tracking Options."

When I check "Request a read receipt for this message," I know that the recipent can block this at the server level, at the computer level or on an optional basis and in those cases, I will receive nothing.

When I check "Request a delivery receipt for this message," however (as I did with a message a few moments ago), within two minutes I generally get back an e-mail from my ISP's Postmaster with the subject, "Delivery Notification: Message successfully relayed" that confirms the e-mail at least got to the other party's server.

Recently I have had a couple of strange things happen to me:

Two e-mails sent to a lawyer at a corporate legal department returned neither receipt. He confirmed for me by telephone that he had received the e-mails but said he had no idea about the delivery receipts.

This week I sent an e-mail to an executive at a different company and have received no receipts of either kind.

Is anyone familiar with this problem? Can ISPs or servers block my ISP from sending me a delivery receipt? (If so, how?)

If this is the case, is there any way to know for sure that your e-mail is getting to the address you specify in the "TO:" line?

JClishe

No.

There's no telling how many SMTP gateways and AV/Spam filtering boxes your message will pass through, each manufactured by one of dozens or hundreds of possible vendors, and each vendor will implement their own notification options. There's no way to know for sure what notification options have been enabled / disabled on any of the boxes your message will pass through.

cordelli

There is no fool proof way, any method is easy enough for the ISP or the person to block. The only way is to ask they confirm it either by hitting reply or in some other method.

sbm12

There is a 3rd party service that some of my old law firm clients were considering that effectively does provide tracking of email receipts. One of the more popular ones is RPost. It is not fool-proof as they mostly guarantee only that the message makes it to the recipient's server, not to the actual recipient. I believe they also have a mode that embeds a tracking image in the email but that also depends on the client permitting the display of the image. Either way is slightly better than the built-in Outlook options.

The interesting thing about RPost is that they seem to have received some guidance from lawyers such that they consider their service "proof of delivery" in the legal sense.

elCheapoDeluxe

The tracking images aren't very foolproof. Many mail clients (Outlook 2007, Gmail, probably more) don't load images in emails unless the user specifically allows it for that message or sender. You aren't likely to get any false positives (which may be why it could count as "proof of delivery") but it sure would be subject to plenty of false negatives. Tracking images have been used by spammers for years to verify which addresses are alive and which messages have been opened, so image blocking is increasingly standard.

If you want absolute verified delivery, you could also send via one of the services that promises secure emails by not actually transmitting any of the message in the email. The email is essentially just a link that opens a secure site from which the recipient can not copy and paste. Self destruct options can be set as well. You would be able to tell exactly if and when the message was viewed. I find these a little cumbersome, but it is the only absolutely verifiable method I can think of. It can not, however, promise the recipient was paying attention

Landing Gear

I'll look that over in the next couple of days and give you my opinion.

But just off the top of my head, having already litigated the issue of what we call personal, in-hand delivery several times, I can't see how anything electronic rises to that standard. Nevertheless, I'll have a look.

Landing Gear

Interestingly enough, I heard from the second person last week in a direct reply to my message for which I got neither kind of receipt.

I find this a bit strange.

straygaijin

Not strange at all. We don't have delivery receipts turned on for any message coming to our company email and I have read receipts turned off on my inbox so if you sent me a mail you would get neither type of receipt (though you may get a reply!).

We turn off all delivery receipts on our company email to stop spammers trying every name combination to find which ones are real.

I block read receipts on my inbox because I want to control if and when I reply - I don't want to feel I must reply because the person knows that I have read the mail.

videomaker

Yep, that's an option in Outlook.

cblaisd

Ding, ding, ding. +1

Landing Gear

I never considered this. Thank you.

That's your right. On the other hand, I gladly give read receipts to friends, colleagues and people with whom I am doing business. In fact during certain projects, I may even tell someone to send me a particular communication with read receipt and if he hasn't gotten it within a specific amount of time to telephone me.