Re: E-Mail tracing notification system

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

> 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.

   That paragraph should have ended (excerpting from above):

"a network connection is made whenever your email program processes
HTML content in any messages you receive that contain their tracking
markup."

   As far as tracking one or more forwards of email messages is
concerned, these services can do this if the forwarding process
doesn't remove the tracking markup, and the HTML portion of the
message enclosing that markup remains sufficiently intact that the
next recipient's email program can still successfully process it.

   If someone were to just selectively copy part of the text from a
message into a new message before forwarding it on, for instance, or
the email program alters the message in any number of other ways
during forwarding, that from that point on the message may no longer
be trackable. In addition, some email programs that don't process
HTML at all, or that impose restrictions on the handling of HTML
content, may thwart any such tracking attempts.

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 16:20:42 2006