Subject: Return Receipt et al

From: Paul Maclauchlan <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 1 Mar 1993 13:26:41 -0500

Is there a philosophical reason a "Return-Receipt-To:" header is not
available with the Rich Header option?  It would be useful.

Even more useful would be a method for a sender to check the Status: line
of a message sent to another user.  I keep getting questions like "How do
I know they read my message?"  Any suggestions?

--
.../Paul Maclauchlan
Moore Corporation Limited, Toronto, Ontario (416) 364-2600
[email-masked]   -or-  {...!uunet.ca,...!telly}!moore!paul
"You know you can't hold me forever, I didn't sign up with you."/EJ&BT'73

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From: Mark Crispin <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 1 Mar 1993 12:49:45 -0800 (PST)

> available with the Rich Header option?  It would be useful.

The Return-Receipt-To header is extremely controversial.  It is not part of
any standards; rather, it is a local feature implemented inside the UNIX
sendmail and not in other mailers.

Thus, there is no guarantee that you will get a return receipt; the absence of
a receipt does not mean that that the user did not get the message, just as
the absence of a human-generated acknowledgement or reply does not.

Some people, including me, are opposed to the functionality on privacy
grounds.  I patched out the return receipt functionality in sendmail on my
workstations.  If I do not acknowledge or reply to a message, I have a
specific reason for not doing so; and do not want a program to override my
wishes.

There has been talk about a voluntary facility that would prompt the user
agent to say, when the receipient reads the mail, ``the sender requested that
this message be acknowledged.  Shall I send an acknowledgement?''  The problem
is, since it's a voluntary functionality, it would suffer all the problems of
uncertainty that return receipts would.

> I know they read my message?"  Any suggestions?

This is something that would be even more abhorrant, even to people who accept
the return receipt functionality as attractive.  It requires a program to dig
into another user's private data.

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From: [email-masked] (Will Estes)
Date: Mon, 1 Mar 93 13:58:22 PST

'Mark Crispin says:'
> specific reason for not doing so; and do not want a program to override my

I thought that Return-Receipt-To simply acknowledges receipt of the
mail by the host, *not* that the mail has necessarily been read by
the receiver.  Is that not correct?

-- 
Thanks,
Will Estes              Internet: [email-masked]

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From: Mark Crispin <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 1 Mar 1993 14:08:57 -0800 (PST)

> the receiver.  Is that not correct?

What difference does that make?  Having my host say ``I got the message and
deposited it in his mailbox'' still conveys more information than I may
necessarily wish to convey.