Email tracking

[The Wildcard]

Does anybody know exactly how do these services are able to tell if you OPENED your email or not?

It claims to work even with web-based email services, such as Hotmail and Yahoo.

It seems to have the capability of doing it automatically.Maybe embedding some code in the email?

ReadNotify.com
ReturnReceipt.com

 

[minendo]

From ReadNotify.com:

# How does it work.
After typing your email, but before clicking send, add ".readnotify.com" onto the end of your recipient's email address: for example - drakecn@yahoo.com.readnotify.com This directs your email to pass through our servers where we assign it a tracking code. When your email gets read, the tracking code comes back to our server with the date and time, so we can let you know it that it got there.

 

[minendo]

From ReturnReceipt.com:

How to send tracked emails

There are two ways you can send tracked emails:

1. Manually by simply adding: .returnreceipt.com to the end of your recipients email address (they won't see this). For example, a tracked email to: drakecn@yahoo.com would look like: drakecn@yahoo.com.returnreceipt.com

See also: Other sending options and features.

OR

2. (Recommended) Install one of our ActiveTracker plugins to add the tracking for you.

Testing? If you send tracked emails to yourself, your anti-spam filters may block them (people don't usually write to themselves) - so we recommend you test by sending to other people.

I find it quite odd that both sites you listed use the same yahoo email address in their example.

 

[Rainsford]

Originally posted by: minendo
From ReadNotify.com:

# How does it work.
After typing your email, but before clicking send, add ".readnotify.com" onto the end of your recipient's email address: for example - drakecn@yahoo.com.readnotify.com This directs your email to pass through our servers where we assign it a tracking code. When your email gets read, the tracking code comes back to our server with the date and time, so we can let you know it that it got there.

That does not explain anything...

Also, I'm almost positive that they just imbed a tiny image into the email that references one of their servers. When you read the email, most clients will display the image, which is pulled from their webserver, so they can tell exactly when you looked at it.

 

[PowerMacG5]

Originally posted by: Rainsford

Originally posted by: minendo
From ReadNotify.com:

# How does it work.
After typing your email, but before clicking send, add ".readnotify.com" onto the end of your recipient's email address: for example - drakecn@yahoo.com.readnotify.com This directs your email to pass through our servers where we assign it a tracking code. When your email gets read, the tracking code comes back to our server with the date and time, so we can let you know it that it got there.

That does not explain anything...

Also, I'm almost positive that they just imbed a tiny image into the email that references one of their servers. When you read the email, most clients will display the image, which is pulled from their webserver, so they can tell exactly when you looked at it.

That's exactly what I was thinking.

 

[mugs]

One common way is to use an image embedded in the e-mail (i.e. a 1x1 white box) with a unique URL attached, i.e. http://www.example.com/img.gif?code=BHDFSJKEW

When you open the e-mail, as long as the image loads they can track it. img.gif would most likely be a sever-side script that stores the info in a database.

 

[The Wildcard]

Well if it's an image imbedded in the email, it's probably disguised as a banner or an icon or something.

So next question is, how to block it? My only guess would be to track down where the image is being pulled from and block it.

 

[mugs]

Originally posted by: The_Wildcard
Well if it's an image imbedded in the email, it's probably disguised as a banner or an icon or something.

So next question is, how to block it? My only guess would be to track down where the image is being pulled from and block it.

Disable images in e-mail...

 

[The Wildcard]

So configuring the email service to only view messages in TEXT would be one way.

Take a look at the next link. It's to another forum. They say that they could link your email to a sound file. That way, depending on how long the .wav file is, they can determine how long you opened the sound file or essentially the email. This also would bypass blocking images in your email.

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