the sender of this email has asked to be notified of its receipt

"The controlling asshole who sent this email isn't satisfied with merely having sent this message. He wants to know when you opened it. He needs to know for a couple of reasons. One, he needs to know how frequently you check your email, and when. Two, he also needs to know how long it took you to act on the contents of the email. Needless to say, the sooner the better, at least for you, lest the sender of this email become unhappy with your performance."

This is a trend that needs to be given a beat-down before it gets out of hand. I've noticed two manifestations of this shit. One, the old-fashioned version, is just a note in the body of the email telling you to reply when you've received the message. The newer and creepier one is one that makes your email host program give you a little box to choose whether to notify the sender or not. I'll take "not."

 

I've even had some that want to send a notification when I delete the email. Uh, no.

 

This seems along the same lines as the disclaimers people put at the end of e-mails that are often longer than the message itself ("You are hereby notified that this message is intended for the sender...") and that are absolutely meaningless.

 

This "trend" is as old as e-mail itself. The notify-sender-return-receipt deal is older than many of our regular posters.

 

They can set it from their end to report to back to them when it's been opened. There's no reason you should have to do anything.

And unless it's from someone you know, it's just an attempt to verify that the message reached an active email address, so it can be put on spam lists.

 

I don't see the big deal with letting someone know you've gotten their e-mail. A lot of parents who e-mail stuff in each week for our outdoors page ask for an e-mail receipt.

No big deal, really.

 

Parents are notorious about this. I always pick no, too, and then immediately delete it.

 

There are situations where confirming receipt of an email is not a big deal, true. There are many instances where it's a matter of courtesy, such as someone sending you a big file in an attachment, or maybe an older person who isn't quite comfortable with the net. I don't mind helping people who really aren't sure that the message arrived.

I do mind "helping" people who know damn well that their message arrived and are just being nosy or controlling. And yes, spammers are a menace, as well.

 

Every e-mail client gives users an option to not send e-mail receipts (I have receipts turned on by default in Thunderbird).

Gmail's web interface apparently does not.

 

Unless it's an email from an employer asking me to complete a certain task, I'm not all that interested in helping ANYONE figure out how long it took for me to act on the contents, if I chose to at all.

 

Could be worse. They could be calling you five minutes after they hit "Send" and asking if you got the e-mail.

 

Exactly.

There are times I do this when I'm sending out individual personalized pitches on behalf of clients. For all I know, some of you may have gotten these and I don't care how long it takes for you to read them.

I'm just doing it to verify -- at both of our conveniences -- that you took the time to read my brief pitch.

It takes you one click to verify you opened it, as opposed to the inconvenience it would take for me to call you and verify you got my brief pitch.