So I’m just finishing the page proofs on Code v2. As you recall (pretend if you don’t), one theme of Code was that commerce would develop tools to facilitate better regulability of the Net. I take a break to check the email account at the Academy. The Academy is using a hosted Gmail system. A Gmail add tells me about “DidTheyReadIt.com.” This service will allow you to determine whether someone read an email you sent them, how long they kept the message open, and from where they read it. It is trivially easy to use (you add their address to the address you’re sending, e.g., [email protected]), and it adds a bug to the message that tracks exactly how the message is used.
Wow.
I assume only works for HTML-format mail. Those of use who stick to plaintext should be immune.
Basically, it looks like they’re trying to force connections back to their website and sending you the data.
But tracking for mass-mailing is indeed big business.
I would not rely on such a “stealth” way to track the readership of my emails but maybe there are other business sectors that see nothing wrong with this.
Just as mentioned above, with more and more cautious email readers (Outlook 2003, Gmail and more) less and less external resources (images, JS) are accessed by default when opening emails.
This improves security significantly and reduces the tracking capabilities of similar services.
These tracking services will surely fight back with stealthier methods but there is a fine line of privacy that may be crossed.
I would not recommend it to tech savvy business or individuals; rather the opposite.
Yikes! … thanks for sharing.
Iwas wondering how they could claim to know how long an email remained opened and found the explanation in this June 2004 posting:
http://www.oreillynet.com/onlamp/blog/2004/06/more_on_didtheyreaditcom.html
Apparently when the recipient’s machine does the HTTP GET for the web bug, the DidYouReadIt server holds the TCP connection open by sending a constant stream of data down it – eeek!
Ian
Iwas wondering how they could claim to know how long an email remained opened and found the explanation in this June 2004 posting:
http://www.oreillynet.com/onlamp/blog/2004/06/more_on_didtheyreaditcom.html
Apparently when the recipient’s machine does the HTTP GET for the web bug, the DidYouReadIt server holds the TCP connection open by sending a constant stream of data down it – eeek!
Ian
BTW: didtheyreadit.com does not conform to German data protection law unless the email recepient allows for his personal data to be transmitted beforehand.
FYI, Gmail won’t load such images by default: when you get an HTML e-mail with embedded image links, it defers loading the images until you explicitly authorize them.
The mailer I use does not download included images, like the “web bugs” this service relies on, unless I specifically ask. I think that recent Outlook versions can be configured to work that way as well.
For years, spammers have been using this technique to improve the quality of their mailing lists (recording those messages that are opened by actual people).
Using that kind of software would put somebody on my blacklist for… forever? It’s the most impolite tool to use. It’s not a coincidence spammers use it. It’s the equivalent of the doubleclick.net cookie for e-mail.
If I appreciate one setting in Outlook Express, it’s the one called: “Block images and other content in HTML e-mail.” I have it On.
I think the Net would be a much better place if HTML e-mail would be outlawed. The only people who adore/need it are the advertisers.
This is a perfect tool for stalkers. Verify that someone is working late, then wait for them in the parking lot.
I have to wonder, why an org like Creative Commons is so keen on pushing proprietary software.. I can’t help but feel if I had Microsoft Office and a Second Life mashup tag cloud on my blog, I’d be the darling of the ‘free’ culture world.
Am I the only one who feels free culture ought to be a lot more like free software than it is? We don’t have to accept these compromises, more specifically, Larry, you don’t have to accept them. You’re a very well known guy, you sit on the board of the FSF FFS – please please please try and leverage some of that clout 🙂
You’ll get 10x the love and respect that way.
mattl
Matti,
Was free software built upon a free software platform?
At first, when there was no free software, no. As soon as a piece of free software written, it could be used instead of the non-free.
Thanks to that we have now have free software for word processing, for all office applications in fact. We have free software for making games and other software, with complete network stacks and cross platform compilers.
I don’t understand why Second Life is so heavily promoted. Maybe it’s good, but shouldn’t free culture be focusing on freedom?
Proprietary software doesn’t give freedom, it can’t. Second Life might be wonderful, but I find it disheartening that Creative Commons promotes it so heavily. Free Culture should be about creativity and participation without restrictions or borders.
matt lee
It is difficult to compare writing privacy invading systems on top of Gmail to bootstrapping GNU using UNIX.
The problem with this comparison is that you could not recreate Gmail in Gmail and then run it elsewhere as a Free replacement for the original. Even if you build Free systems within Gmail they are tied to servers you do not own, and to code you cannot hack. You cannot move your own work elsewhere.
Gmail is cool, but if it is ever turned off that will destroy any freedom that people have tried to create on top of it along with terabytes of people’s work. The FSF are very clear about the problems of using Free Software on proprietary systems, and this is a good modern example with great relevance to Free Culture.
I find it disturbing that as both an FSF board member and a CC board member you are using such an emotive and erronious comparison to extol the virtues of proprietary software and creative enclosures.
As for Second Life I have a paid account there and my son is a landowner on the teen grid. It’s cool but it isn’t remotely Free, and it is a hazardous environment for creative work or creating freedom in. The data is in weird formats, both client and server are proprietary and the communications protocol is undocumented. The company are still making heavy losses. They will come under increasing pressure over copyright and trademark infringement inworld. Success could harm creative freedom almost as much as failure for SL. And like Gmail, only worse because the data isn’t just ASCII that you can send elsewhere, freedom and work in SL would simply evaporate if the servers were turned off.
This is the same thing that Google Analytics and most other tracking systems use, web beacons. It’s nothing new.
This is a topic that’s near to my heart… Best wishes! Where are your contact details though?
You’re so cool! I do not think I’ve truly read something like that before. So wonderful to find somebody with unique thoughts on this topic. Really.. many thanks for starting this up. This site is something that is needed on the internet, someone with some originality!
Having read this I thought it was very informative. I appreciate you taking the time and energy to put this short article together. I once again find myself personally spending a significant amount of time both reading and posting comments. But so what, it was still worth it!