[Dovecot] Can we know when a user read our email?

[Ed W]

On 03/06/2012 14:46, Charles Marcus wrote:
> On 2012-06-03 4:43 AM, Ed W <lists at wildgooses.com> wrote:
>> Look, I can argue against the idea easily, personally my objection is
>> mail loops, but the point is that the customer demands it, and at
>> present that prevents me bidding for certain types of business...
>> Basically the customer just wants to repro what they got with Exchange
>
> Then tell them their only option is to buy Exchange Server and Outlook 
> for everyone - but explain that this 'feature' *still* will not work 
> for recipients that are outside of your control (ie, it will only work 
> for local recipients - and I *think* it is possible to set up Trusts 
> with other external Exchange Servers, but not sure, and if it does, it 
> requires the explicit cooperation of the other systems admin).
>
> Bottom line: do NOT promise the impossible to a client just to win the 
> business. It is a losing proposition, as you are beginning to see...
>

You have the situation backwards.

I think you know about the MailASail business.  We run small ISP selling 
mail accounts to customers.  *our customers* want to voluntarily tell 
senders when they have downloaded an email via POP.  The basic 
requirement is when the message is accessed via POP, then the sender 
(presumably defined by the FROM address) is sent a notification.

Please don't argue about the spam aspects, etc - we are all on the same 
page here.  However, it's not an entirely foolish request - because the 
customer is on dialup MDN implemented by the mail client isnt really 
feasible, and DSN doesn't help us realise that the remote user has at 
least connected and accessed the mail.  So they are kind of asking for a 
limited server side implementation of MDN.  In fact this isn't that 
unreasonable, it's just problematic and unusual.

Ed W