Subject: Re: Return Receipt et al

From: Joe Ilacqua <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 01 Mar 1993 17:13:53 -0500

<But, I claim that I have no right to know whether or not a
>message I sent makes it to [email-masked]'s mailbox unless Joe Ilacqua
<decides to give me that information.

	I disagree, I think I have ever right to know whether mail
mail was delivered or not.  Whether my mail got to you or whizzed off
in to a black hole is very much my business.

<Consider, too, the frightening possibility of lawsuits getting served
>via email in light of the well-known irresponsible ways that people
<sometimes use email.

	This is a real reach.

<I don't see any particular reason why Pine shouldn't make it possible to send
>a Return-Receipt-To header.  On the other hand, who can take responsibility
<for making sure it works?

	You don't have to guarantee it works, as there is no way the
sending site can, just provide access to it.  Or allow user defined
headers like ELM does.

->Spike

---

From: Mark Crispin <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 1 Mar 1993 14:29:00 -0800 (PST)

> in to a black hole is very much my business.

You may think it's your right, but if the recipient chooses to run a mailer
that does not pay any attention to your request for a receipt then you have no
way of forcing him to do so.

So, the person who thinks it's his right not to give you that information is
going to win out.  So is the person who thinks it's his right not to bother
implementing it.

These acknowledgements are voluntary.  There is no particular reason to
believe that a request for a human-generated acknowledgement will work any
worse than a request for a mailer-generated acknowledgement.  Provably, there
are cases where the latter will not work at all.

> >via email in light of the well-known irresponsible ways that people

On the contrary, I have heard rumors of exactly that possibility on a
commercial e-mail system, and I've seen articles in the trade rags about
electronic delivery of legal process.

Anyway, I am not the person to convince about whether or not Pine should
generate that header.  I'm just speaking my mind as a user here.

I think this discussion has been hashed out fully, so I'm not going to say any
more.