Users of Outlook simply download a piece of software to add the secret tracking ability. Subscribers who use Yahoo!, Hotmail or AOL email services can simply add "." to the end of a recipient's e-mail address to have an email tracked. It also provides additional details to senders: the date and time when the email was opened, where, geographically, the email was opened, for how long, and whether it was forwarded. Instead, the service at, from Florida-based Rampell Software, LLC, offers no opportunity to accept or refuse the tracking. For avoidance of doubt, this is not the 'read receipt' service with which users of popular email software like Microsoft Outlook will be familiar, which gives an external email recipient the opportunity to accept or refuse the sender's request for an acknowledgement that the email has been read. The EU Working Party singled out the Did they read it? service as an example of a new type of service. As a general best practice, users should leave the read receipt feature off for a majority of their email communications.Services that track whether an email has been opened will breach EU data protection laws unless the recipient has given unambiguous consent to the service, according to an opinion from the Article 29 EU Working Party on Data Protection. In general, situations warranting the need for read receipts occur infrequently. The sender can follow up directly with the recipients from whom they do not receive a read receipt confirmation. It is appropriate to use the read receipt feature if the sender needs approval to finalize the terms and conditions of a critical business contract by a certain date. For example, some businesses use email to gather electronic approvals from senior managers. Use the read receipt feature only for messages that are critical and time sensitive in nature. A quick phone call is a more personable way to obtain the confirmation sought from a read receipt request. However, because read receipt requests almost always annoy message recipients before they even read the message, business users may find it more effective to just ask the person if they received the email. Because these managers receive a lot of email to begin with, the sender uses the read receipt as a means to confirm that the message did not get lost among a myriad of other emails. In many cases, business users turn on the read receipt feature when they send an important or critical message to senior managers. Inexperienced users may be more receptive to in-person guidance versus receiving instruction via electronic messaging.
Another friendly, respectful way to address the situation is to show the person how to turn the feature off. Message recipients can send a friendly email to these colleagues and share instructions on how to use the read receipt feature appropriately. In some cases, users with limited technology experience may not know that they have the message tracking feature enabled on all the emails they send. Turn off the read receipt feature when sending messages to users who have given "gentle" clues that they do not respond to read receipt requests.
While some business users may feel they have valid reasons for using the read receipt feature on every single email they send, respect the wishes of individuals who consistently decline or ignore read receipt requests.
Some recipients ignore the system-generated messages and take no action. Respect RecipientsĮmail programs typically give users the option to decline a sender's read receipt request.
In business environments that enforce mailbox size restrictions, these notifications may prevent both the sender and the message recipients from receiving other important or critical emails. System-generated notifications can quickly bog down electronic mailboxes, making it easy for users to miss valid business emails. Not only do these users receive the sender's messages, but they also receive two additional system-generated messages indicating that the sender wants to know when they have received and read their message. Recipients generally do not like the read receipt feature, especially when they receive many emails from the same sender on a daily basis. The read receipt feature also notifies email recipients that the sender turned on message tracking. Do not use the read receipt feature on every email you send.