Email Tracking

Tracking your Emails is an essential ingredient of good communication procedure.
To know that the recipient has opened your mail is as fundamental as sending it.

I use MSGTAG for my QE6 workhorse with Bananatag, Sidekick for Gmail and Outlook.com. They all work perfectly, allowing for a handful of failures due to Systems Server or user security configurations. MSGTAG also gives the recipient a message that their mail opening has been notified back to the sender.

These programs are all free, so even if you lose a few notifications, it matters little. Infinitely better than none at all, where your mail simply disappears into the far blue yonder and from then on you know nothing. From my own experience, the success rate must be well over 90%, failures being rare.

MSGTAG use a tiny hidden image, which on a few systems can be detected by the Email AV scanner or system set-up and the mail dumped in the Spam or Junk folder. It happens very rarely, but definitely does on MS Outlook.com. I have had no problems getting notifications back from Gmail or OE6.

Bananatag and Sidekick use a hidden single pixel which is activated when the mail is opened. I have had no problems so far with this method.
Bananatag sends an Email notification, whilst Sidekick produces a pop-up on screen with a receipt digit displayed on the screen icon and an entry on the drop-down list.

Whoreadme is also good and uses a manual addon to the address, which you have to add - example - joesoap@blabla.com.whoreadme.com. More laborious, but it works fine. The added bit does not show up on the recipients system.

Whoreadme gives an Email notification to the sender which includes a location map, IP, Server, Windows version, Browser and lots more personal data. Location geographically fails when a proxy is used by the recipients Email - Outlook.com and Gmail have such proxies. Example -your buddy two blocks away is shown to be in California etc. But apart from this, all other locations are fairly accurate.

Bananatag, Sidekick and Whoreadme employ completely hidden techniques, the recipient does not know they have been tracked.

The main issue is to receive a notification that your mail has been opened, not to know all the recipients data.

I have had notifications back from Government departments, Local Authorities, Military sources and the Police. I even got one back from the UK Prime Minister`s Email address.

Email tracking is not snooping or any infringement of privacy, it is a necessary ingredient of communications practice and closes the technical loop between message sending and message receipt.
__________________

I would just add that my post is intended to stress the benefits of Email tracking.

Of course there are a variety of ways of avoiding it, from personal configuration to systems restrictions or the use of proxy servers. This is not the subject of this thread and I would appreciate a complete absence of anti-tracking comments. Raise an anti-tracking thread if you feel so strongly about it.

As a rather domestic example, I Emailed the CEO of VM a few days ago. Within 30 minutes of sending it, I received a MSGTAG notification that it had been opened. If he is not paranoid about being tracked, why should we be ?

[MovedGoalPosts]

If you want to proof that something has been received, used a signed for post process.

You cannot guarantee that email will have been received, and more importantly read, by your intended recipient. Lots of organisations, particularly government, larger companies, and so on will have people screening stuff. At best it just means a mail client has seen the message. For example the VM CEO mail is normally passed through an office where there are a number of specialist troubleshooters. It's not just the CEO and his PA.

There is a reason why many people turn off any autoresponders in their email clients.

Originally Posted by Rob

If you want to proof that something has been received, used a signed for post process.

You cannot guarantee that email will have been received, and more importantly read, by your intended recipient. Lots of organisations, particularly government, larger companies, and so on will have people screening stuff. At best it just means a mail client has seen the message. For example the VM CEO mail is normally passed through an office where there are a number of specialist troubleshooters. It's not just the CEO and his PA.

There is a reason why many people turn off any autoresponders in their email clients.

Valid comments but irrelevant in the wider issue. Tracking works and is here to stay, like it or lump it. Some you lose, many you win, that is the name of the game.

Have you asked the people who you send emails to if they're happy for you to have this personal information, such as

a location map, IP, Server, Windows version, Browser and lots more personal data.

I don't see how knowing that info is necessary to knowing if your email has been read - I personally believe this is snooping and an infringement of privacy, even if you don't.....

Originally Posted by Hugh

Have you asked the people who you send emails to if they're happy for you to have this personal information, such as

I don't see how knowing that info is necessary to knowing if your email has been read - I personally believe this is snooping and an infringement of privacy, even if you don't.....

Not up to me to ask anybody, it is the Email tracker program which compiles all that stuff. Bananatag and Sidekick basically just notify you the mail has been opened, plus the recipients location if it is not a proxy server like Google uses.

All I need is to know that the recipient has opened my mail and to get that signal is nothing at all to do with the recipient. It is my mail and if I have a method whereby I get a notification it has been opened, then communications have had a nice day and so have I.

Email tracking is not snooping or any infringement of privacy

What nonsense, snooping and privacy infringement is exactly what it is, you have no business whatsover in knowing peoples location, IP and other data just because you e-mailed them, or for that matter, whether they read your e-mail - e-mail is not a guaranteed delivery system, and was never designed to be.

---------- Post added at 17:44 ---------- Previous post was at 17:33 ----------

I have also moved this out of the articles area, that area is moderated and not intended for discussions.

Originally Posted by Wittmann

Not up to me to ask anybody, it is the Email tracker program which compiles all that stuff. Bananatag and Sidekick basically just notify you the mail has been opened, plus the recipients location if it is not a proxy server like Google uses.

All I need is to know that the recipient has opened my mail and to get that signal is nothing at all to do with the recipient. It is my mail and if I have a method whereby I get a notification it has been opened, then communications have had a nice day and so have I.

Rubbish - That's like saying if you shot someone, it wasn't you, it was the gun.....

You are using a tool to collect personal information without their permission - the responsibility is yours.

Originally Posted by Hugh

Rubbish - That's like saying if you shot someone, it wasn't you, it was the gun.....

You are using a tool to collect personal information without their permission - the responsibility is yours.

Now it is my turn to say RUBBISH.

You're all transmit and no receive, aren't you.

I, at least, try to have a rational discussion.......

[qasdfdsaq]

Originally Posted by Wittmann

Not up to me to ask anybody, it is the Email tracker program which compiles all that stuff. Bananatag and Sidekick basically just notify you the mail has been opened, plus the recipients location if it is not a proxy server like Google uses.

Google doesn't use a 'proxy server'

All I need is to know that the recipient has opened my mail and to get that signal is nothing at all to do with the recipient. It is my mail and if I have a method whereby I get a notification it has been opened, then communications have had a nice day and so have I.

I suppose you think sending someone a letter and watching them open it in their own home is OK too and nothing at all to do with the recipient?

---------- Post added at 20:01 ---------- Previous post was at 19:52 ----------

Originally Posted by Rob

There is a reason why many people turn off any autoresponders in their email clients.

That is true, and raises a related point - there are already existing, established systems built-in to the email protocol itself that allow for consensual tracking and notifications. Those systems notify you when a recipient has received and/or read your email, but only with their permission. And as you say, most people turn it off because they don't like the idea.

What the OP is proposing is non-consensual, surreptitious tracking. And while it's not "nice", it's nothing new, frequently used by spammers, and probably not illegal. One could argue the information retrieved is necessarily provided by the client in order for anything to work, after all you get the same information submitted to your site from every visitor who visits CableForum. Thanks to it being widely used by spammers and hackers though, almost all email providers block it by default now.

---------- Post added at 20:07 ---------- Previous post was at 20:01 ----------

Originally Posted by Hugh

I don't see how knowing that info is necessary to knowing if your email has been read - I personally believe this is snooping and an infringement of privacy, even if you don't.....

Eh, you have too much faith in people. Still, most of that info is just a rough guess based on standard information submitted by a web browser any time someone opens a web page. If someone opens such a "booby-trapped" message from an internet cafe, pretty much all the information would be unrelated to them.

[Russ]

Originally Posted by Wittmann

Now it is my turn to say RUBBISH.

That's the equivalent of sticking your fingers in your ears and going "LALALALALALALALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU LALALALALALALALALALALA"

I have nothing to hide but I don't want anyone tracking me, my emails, my location unless I'm happy for them to do so and 99% of the time I'm not.

I'm certainly got going to agree with supposed 'merits' of email trackers.

[ianch99]

Maybe most people see email like they do postal mail. For the latter:

It is only an offence if you open someone else’s mail ‘without reasonable excuse’ or if you ‘intend to act to another’s detriment'

When the email arrives in the inbox (or mail server) of the recipient, it is no longer the property of the sender. So the sender has no right to interact with the email at this point without receiving permission of the recipient.

So exactly what are the rules about email tracking?Are there any legal aspects to doing so?

Originally Posted by Russ

That's the equivalent of sticking your fingers in your ears and going "LALALALALALALALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU LALALALALALALALALALALA"

I have nothing to hide but I don't want anyone tracking me, my emails, my location unless I'm happy for them to do so and 99% of the time I'm not.

I'm certainly got going to agree with supposed 'merits' of email trackers.

Hello Russ,

Of course I understand your feelings, lots of people feel that way, but tracking is here to stay and is used widely by millions of private users and by commercial enterprises.

Unless you personally take steps to block tracking on your PC, I am afraid you will be tracked and know absolutely nothing about it. What you don`t know, you cannot worry about. You are stuck with it.

I am an Email user as well and wide open to tracking just like everybody else. Do I care ? NO not at all, I have more important things to occupy my time, so I cannot see why others should go to war about it. It is perfectly legal and regardless of individuals moral opinions, will carry on.