Email question...can they tell....?

[Doghouse Reilly]

Is there a way for someone to tell whether or not you've read an email they've sent you? If so, is there a way to tell whether or not they are capable of doing so?
I, I mean, my friend doesn't make a habit of deception, but this is a rare case in which he needs to tell a "white lie" and inform someone that I didn't recieve their email until after he actually did. But he doesn't want to say this if they can turn around and say "no way, I can see that you read it TODAY!"
Thank you for your help, and just look at it as the education of an email user, not as aiding and abetting.

 

[Ed]

I use MSGTAG

http://www.msgtag.com

It sends me a return receipt and informs the recipient after the receipt is sent. It is free. For $9 you can upgrade to a version that does not inform the recipient that the return receipt has been sent.

It can be defeated, at least my version has once.

 

[Iconoclast]

Is there a way for someone to tell whether or not you've read an email they've sent you? If so, is there a way to tell whether or not they are capable of doing so?
I, I mean, my friend doesn't make a habit of deception, but this is a rare case in which he needs to tell a "white lie" and inform someone that I didn't recieve their email until after he actually did. But he doesn't want to say this if they can turn around and say "no way, I can see that you read it TODAY!"
Thank you for your help, and just look at it as the education of an email user, not as aiding and abetting.

Well, spammers use a piece of code called a "pixel bug", but it will only affect you if you enable active scripting in your mail client, unfortunately you can only enable or disable scripting at a global level in Microsoft products, you can't have scripting enabled in IE and disabled in Outlook. Each message the spammers send out has a 1x1 pixel image attached (it's just a dot), with a [src] attribute that includes the unique number assigned to your email.

So, if they assigned the number 1234 to the email sent to you, then the image tag in your email will be:

[img src="www.spammercentral.com/images.asp?id=1234"]

If you view your email message and have active scripting enabled, your mail client will automatically send a request for the above URL in order to draw the picture, and the spammer's site will log a message that you've viewed it.

Your friend should also note that email uses a "fire and forget" protocol, there's no guarantee that a message sent will ever be received, even if the sender received no undeliverable message from his mail server.

[edited to add]

Bleh! Though I said active scripting all through that post, I'm an idiot. Every man and his dog knows the code outlined above will work with any HTML enabled application, scripting is irrelevent. To stop this from happening in Outlook you need only change your mail format from HTML to "Plain Text".

 

[Soapy Sam]

Surely this depends on the sender's email client? Some (like Outlook) can be configured to show this info, others can't.
In any case, all that can be said is that someone (and I presume this might include an automated program) read the message. This does not prove it was you, though it might not get you off the hook.

 

[Nasarius]

Every man and his dog knows the code outlined above will work with any HTML enabled application, scripting is irrelevent. To stop this from happening in Outlook you need only change your mail format from HTML to "Plain Text".

Right you are. Most people will want to disable this "pixel bug" ASAP, as it's a favorite way for spammers to confirm your email address. If you're using Mozilla Thunderbird and you still want to have HTML email, simply go to Tools -> Options -> Advanced -> Privacy and check off "Block loading of remote images".

Return receipts are the legitimate way to confirm that your email has been viewed, but they are completely voluntary.
So, there's no good solution to your problem. There are so many issues with email today that really merit a complete overhaul of the underlying protocols. But don't count on that happening any time soon.

 

[De_Bunk]

Or...

In Outlook Express...

Go Tools / Options / Read

And make sure "Read mail in plain text" is checked...

Stops all the embedded images being downloaded...

DB

 

[Moose]

There is a feature in the standard email specification to request a notification on download, or open, or both.

The result is that on either of these events, a reply email is automatically sent to the sender.

Email clients can be set to honor, or deny, this request.

All conformant email clients must be capable of doing this, per some RFC or other. All clients I've ever used were both conformant, and able to decline such requests.

Depending on your client, you may (or may not) be able to tell whether such a request was made and whether or not it was honored.

I hope this helps.