didtheyreadit is a new subscription-based service that informs the sender (of an email message) of the time, approximate location and duration of the recipient’s viewing of each message the subscriber sent. For a fee of about $50 a year a subscriber can know for sure that his email did get through and was actually viewed by the sendee. The service is similar to ReturnReceipt.com and others, that offer clandestine tracking of email usage.
The service is based on embedded HTML code called web bugs, which are transparent gif graphics sometimes as small as 1×1 pixels. When the ‘bugged’ email message is opened, the email client connects to the internet to download the graphic. The email address is then sent to the server, which logs the information.
Web bugs can be detected by some spyware programs, but can always be found by reading the HTML source code. Yahoo! labels their version of web bugs as “web beacons”; their policy on the subject is here. For the brave, a demo of web bugs can be found at this location.
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