tracking emails

Prashant Mahajan

Pune Null Meet, 22nd August, 2009Securematrix

I am currently pursuing TY.BCA (Bachelors of Computer Applications) from Sinhgad College of Science

I am Security Enthusiast

I don’t know everything, nor do I pretend to know everything.

I’m just a geek with time on my hands

What is Email Tracking?

Can the Popular Email Service Providers Protect You ?

Email tracking is a method for monitoring the e-mail delivery to intended recipient.

Most tracking technologies utilize some form of digitally time-stamped record to reveal the exact time and date that your e-mail was received or opened, as well the IP address of the recipient.

E-mail tracking is useful when the sender wants to know if the intended recipient actually received the e-mail, or if they clicked the links. However, due to the nature of the technology, e-mail tracking cannot be considered an absolutely accurate indicator that a message was opened or read by the recipient.

Source: Wikipedia

Some e-mail applications, such as Microsoft Office Outlook, employ a read-receipt tracking mechanism. The sender selects the receipt request option prior to sending the message, and then upon sending, each recipient has the option of notifying the sender that the message was received and/or read by the recipient.

The technical term for these is MDN - Message Disposition Notifications, and they are requested by inserting one or more of the following lines into the email headers: X-Confirm-Reading-To: Disposition-Notification-To: or Return-Receipt-To:

Source: Wikipedia

When you send a tracked e-mail message, whether it's a simple text message or a graphical html message, the e-mail marketing system may embed a tiny, invisible tracking image (a single-pixel gif, sometimes called a web beacon) within the content of the message.

When the recipient opens the message, the tracking image is referenced.

Source: Wikipedia

Email tracking is used by individuals, email marketers, spammers and phishers.

To detect whether the email address is valid or not.

Whether the email passes the spam filters.

To detect unauthorized forwarding and distribution of copyrighted or confidential data.

Source: Wikipedia

www.ReadNotify.com

www.E-mailsecure.com

www.PointofMail.com

www.BigString.com

www.SpyPig.com

www.Confimax.com

www.DidTheyReadIt.com

www.MsgTag.com

www.ReplyMate.com

Prashant Mahajan

prashant_3535@yahoo.co.in

+91-9822426910

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