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

[Maarten Bezemer]

On Thu, 7 Jun 2012, Reindl Harald wrote:

> Am 06.06.2012 23:59, schrieb Ed W:
>> I'm not sure why this is so hard to believe.  There is literally a class of customers that have a specification
>> which says that there must be a notification sent back to the sender whenever they download their emails.  I cannot
>> currently bid for their business.
>>
>> A spec is a spec - either you can meet the spec or you can't bid for the business...
>
> i'm not sure why it is so hard to believe that nobody should
> bid for such idiotic specs - techs should act professional
> and not like whores while try impossible and stupid things
> which can sovle each mail-client since > 10 years and is not
> the job of a mailserver

Does the spec say how to conform to it? I mean: does "the system" have to 
support the transmission of receipts?
Most bidding rounds I've been part of only had very rough descriptions of 
what should be possible. Not exactly how. (Too detailed specs, pointing 
heavily in the direction of one type of solution provider, can be easily 
challenged!)
So, even without Dovecot supporting DSN-stuff, it would be possible to bid 
for these types of clients. The system as a whole does support DSN's, when 
MUA is conforming to relevant specs. Most MUA's support some form of DSN 
of read notification. What's more: whatever choice you make, server side 
or client side, handling of these status messages (and ways to request 
them) heavily depend on the remote party's technology as well.

So, claiming you conform to the read-notification spec can be as easy as 
saying "yes, as long as you use a proper MUA".

-- 
Maarten