A stranger is watching
New software makes it easier to snoop
on people receiving your email
October 28, 2005
Sometimes the success or failure of a new product depends on where it registers on The Ick Scale.
Take, for example, the idea of software that checks whether someone has read your email. It sounds like a simple enough function: Send someone an email and then receive word, either via a separate email or program, when they've read it. Is that like sneaking a peek over a colleague's shoulder at work to see whether they've opened your mail yet, or is it no more creepy than sending something registered mail, so you know it arrived safely? And, depending on where you stand on that, how about if the sender could check how long it took the recipient to open the mail after it was sent? Or for how long he or she read it? What if all this was done without the recipient knowing?
This is tricky -- if not icky -- stuff, and I think it explains why programs that offer these kinds of features remain somewhat fringe. Users of Microsoft Outlook and Outlook Express can request receipts for emails they send, but these don't always work if the recipients use different email programs, or access their mail through Web sites, such as Google's Gmail or Microsoft's Hotmail. So, in recent years a number of companies have stepped into the gap, releasing products that offer not only some of the options above, but several more that creep further up the Ick Scale.
INSIDE TECH
See complete coverage of Asia's technology sector, from cellphones to software.DidTheyReadIt, for example, lets senders know when, roughly where, and for how long the message was read. The service also will tell the sender whether the recipient reopened the email, whether the person forwarded it to someone else, and, roughly, where those recipients are located. In short, you'll know more about your emails than about your kids. And the recipient won't be aware of any of this unless you want them to know. DidTheyReadIt (
www.didtheyreadit.com) is available in several versions, from free to $50 a year, and its creator promises a new version with more features next month.
Then there's ReadNotify (
www.readnotify.com), which offers a few more features: a geographic map pinpointing the city where the recipient read the email, whether he or she opened the email from a Web-mail account or an email program, and whether the recipient clicked on any links in the email. That isn't all. You can opt to have your emails self destruct before the recipient has opened it (useful, I suppose, for hastily written "I quit" emails), or to block the recipient from printing or copying an email you sent them. You can also track whether Word, Excel or PowerPoint attachments were opened, whether they were forwarded, how long they were read for, or, in the case of Adobe Acrobat (PDF) files, which pages were read. And again, the sender is blissfully unaware unless you want them to know. The offspring equivalent of this would probably be to tag your kids with tracking beacons.
I think these services go too far. But where is the line? With the launch of a new version of another program in this field, New Zealand's MessageTag, I thought I would try to find out. I have been using MessageTag for a few years now, and feel that on the whole its creators have struck a good balance between providing useful information to the sender and respecting the privacy of recipients. The only information you can retrieve about the fate of your email is when and whether it was opened. And while you can hide what you are doing from the recipient, the default setting is a small line of text at the bottom of each email notifying the user. I've only had a handful of requests to stop doing it, and MessageTag makes that easy enough to do.
But might that change now? The new MessageTag ($60 from
www.msgtag.com) adds some cool new features, such as allowing you to tag certain emails so you receive alerts about their fate on your cellphone via Short Message Service. It also works on Google's Gmail service, and lets you tag emails you send to multiple recipients. But this version also lets you track the fate of emails you send to multiple recipients, and an option that bars the user from opening an email until they have acknowledged receipt.
I surveyed 33 friends and readers. Asked how they felt about the idea of knowing whether someone has opened an email they sent, most (20 out of the 33) considered it "helpful but not necessary." Only seven either weren't "crazy about it" or thought it intrusive. How about if someone did it to them? As long, it seems, that the sender made it clear that was what they were doing: 17 felt that it was "a good idea" while only five felt "a bit queasy" or "violated" (it was a scientific survey, but I was allowed to make up the questions). Bar the recipient from reading the email unless they acknowledged receiving it first, and the violated camp swelled to 24. A clear Ick Line was emerging, I felt, when the sender hides what he or she is doing from the recipient. My conclusion: These programs must let recipients know what is going on, and, if they don't like it, let them opt out or make it easy for senders to remove them.
But maybe it's grayer than that. One respondent, Vietnam resident Graham Holliday, says that knowing I used MessageTag had changed his email behavior: "You are the only person I know of who uses it and when I receive an email from you there is a little trigger that goes off consciously or unconsciously: 'Oh, he's the guy who tracks emails. He'll know I got this, won't he? If I don't open it now, he might think I don't care.' That means maybe I respond to your email significantly differently than I would to other mail."
In short: If people know I am monitoring my emails, they may behave differently, a bit like Schr?dinger's Cat. It's a good point, and made me feel a bit guilty about using MessageTag.
Now after some reflection, I'm still using it, but less indiscriminately. Now I only tag crucial messages to colleagues, bill collectors, and, definitely, not Graham. Maybe the Icky Line isn't just about what features you use, but how sparingly you use them.
追踪电子邮件行踪的“眼”
有时候，一种新产品越让人讨厌反而越有可能获得成功。
例如，能核实别人是否读了你所发电子邮件的软件就是这样。这种软件的功能听上去非常简单：如果收件人读过你发送的电子邮件了，你就会收到邮件或信息，上边有寥寥数语告知你这个事实。对于这种功能，你会将其视为在同事背后偷窥他们是否打开了你发的邮件呢，还是将它等同于挂号信的回执？如果这种软件能在收件人不知情的情况下让发件人知道他或她是在邮件发出后多久打开的以及花了多长时间读邮件，你会有何感觉？当然，这可能要取决于你站在哪一方的立场上了。
这种功能可够神的，但也有人对其报以冷眼，我认为这正是此类软件为什么仍未大行其道的原因所在。微软Outlook和Outlook Express软件的用户可以在发出电子邮件后获得回执，但如果收件人使用其他软件来接收电子邮件，或是通过登录Google的Gmail或微软的Hotmail等网站来接收邮件，发信人可能就收不到回执了。因此，近些年来许多公司瞄准这一漏洞纷纷推出收件核实软件，这些产品除了具备上述功能外，还有一些更令人咋舌的新本领。
例如，DidTheyReadIt公司的软件就能让发信人知道收信人是在何时、大约在什么地方阅读自己所发邮件的，还能知道他读了多长时间。发信人通过这一软件还能了解到收信人是否再次打开过邮件、是否将邮件转发给过其他人以及那些收到转发邮件的人大体在什么地方。简言之，你对自己邮件去向的了解简直比对自己的孩子知道的还多。而收件人对此却一无所知，除非你想要他们知道。 DidTheyReadIt(公司网址：
www.didtheyreadit.com)的这一软件有数种版本，从免费下载到每年收费50美元不等，该公司承诺，下月即将推出一款包含更多功能的新版软件。
再来看看ReadNotify的产品(公司网址：
www.readnotify.com)，它的软件具备更多功能：可以在地图上标出收件人阅读电子邮件时所在的城市，收件人是通过网络邮件帐户还是电子邮件软件来打开邮件的，以及收件人是否点击了电子邮件附加的任何链接。这还不是全部。你还可以选择在收件人打开你发的电子邮件前将邮件销毁(我想，这一功能对那些在气头上匆匆发出辞职信的人会非常有用)，还能阻止收件人打印或复印你发给他们的电子邮件。你还能够了解自己邮件中所附的Word、Excel或PowerPoint文件是否被打开或转发过，以及它们被阅读了多长时间，如果附件是PDF格式的Adobe Acrobat文件，你还能知道文件的哪几页被阅读了。与同类产品一样，你做这一切的时候收件人也是不知道的，除非你想让他们知道。由此看来，开发出儿童行迹跟踪装置应该也是大有希望了。
我觉得这类服务有些过分。但恰当的尺度在哪里呢？随著新西兰新版MessageTag的推出，我开始禁不住研究起这个问题来。到现在，我使用MessageTag已经有好几年了，我感觉从总体来看它的创建者在向发件人提供有用信息与保护收件人隐私之间较好把握了分寸。你所获得的有关邮件下落的唯一信息是，它在什么时候被打开或者是否被打开。系统默认的一个设置会在邮件的结尾提醒收件人可以有这种功能，当然你也可以隐藏起来不让收件人知道你的行为。在我使用这种服务的过程中，只有很少一些人要求我不要这么做，而在MessageTag上取消这个功能非常容易。
不过现在又有什么新变化吗？新版MessageTag（你可以从
www.msgtag.com下载，收费60美元）增加了一些很酷的新功能，你可以在某些邮件上作上标记，通过Short Message Service在手机上接受有关邮件下落的信息。它还可以在Google的Gmail上运行，还可让你对发送给多个收件人的邮件作上标记。不过这一版本也可以让你跟踪同时发给多个收件人的邮件，并可选择在他们全部确认收到邮件前禁止打开邮件。
我对33位朋友和读者们进行了调查。当被问及对获知自己所发邮件是否已被收件人打开的信息这种做法有何看法时，多数人（33人中有20人）认为“这会有帮助，但不是很必要。”只有7人表示对这种服务既不热衷也不认为它会侵犯隐私。倘若有人针对他们使用这项服务呢？假设发件人明确表示在使用这项服务：17人认为这是个“不错的主意，”只有5个人认为这“有点让人不快”或“是侵犯隐私”。对于让收件人首先确认收到邮件然后才允许其将邮件打开的服务，认为其侵犯隐私的受访者有24位。对发件人不让收件人知道他在监控邮件下落的做法，调查的回答里出现了很厌恶的表态。我的结论是：这些程序必须让收件人知情，如果他们不喜欢，应该让发件人很容易取消这种功能。
不过实际结果比这个还要微妙。接受我调查的越南人格雷厄姆?霍利迪(Graham Holliday)说，得知我使用MessageTag使他改变了写邮件的习惯：“你是我听说过的唯一一个使用这种服务的人，当我收到你的邮件时，我会有意无意地想到，'哦，这家伙在跟踪邮件呢。他知道我收到了，如果我现在不打开，他可能会认为我对他的邮件不重视。'这就意味著我对待你的邮件的方式会与对待其他人的邮件有很大不同。”
简言之：如果人们知道我在监控我发出的邮件，他们可能会改变自己的行为习惯，这有点像“薛定谔的猫”(Schrodinger's Cat)的理论，结果观察者本身影响到了结果。这让我在使用MessageTag时有一点罪恶感。
现在，在接到一些反馈后，我仍然在使用MessageTag，但不再那么不加选择了。现在我只在给同事和给我寄帐单的人（肯定不包括格雷厄姆这样的人）发送邮件时标上提醒信息。或许让人不满的不仅是这种软件的功能本身，还有这种功能只能对少数对象使用的局限性吧。
