Return Receipt

[David E. Ross]

If I send an E-mail message to a Gmail or Yahoo address with
Thunderbird's option for a return receipt checked, do those services
hornor the request? How about the option for delivery status
notification?

--
David E. Ross
<http://www.rossde.com/>

Donald Trump lied his way onto the Forbes 400 richest people list.
<https://tinyurl.com/yx9ebrqz>

[Grant Taylor]

On 5/31/19 3:18 PM, David E. Ross wrote:
> If I send an E-mail message to a Gmail or Yahoo address with
> Thunderbird's option for a return receipt checked, do those services
> hornor the request? How about the option for delivery status
> notification?

I believe I got a DSN from my email server stating that my test message
was relayed to a server that did not support DSNs the last time I tried.

I don't think I received an MDN either.

So I'm going to say that Gmail does not support DSNs nor MDNs. I have
no idea about Yahoo.



--
Grant. . . .
unix || die

[Grant Taylor]

On 5/31/19 5:59 PM, Grant Taylor wrote:
> I have no idea about Yahoo.

I'm curious what other people's experiences are with Yahoo.

["\"Re...@home.com]

On 5/31/19 8:00 PM, Grant Taylor wrote:
> On 5/31/19 5:59 PM, Grant Taylor wrote:
>> I have no idea about Yahoo.
>
> I'm curious what other people's experiences are with Yahoo.
>
>
>

I just did a test with RR checked from my main ISP (Earthlink) account
to a Yahoo account I have.

The Yahoo message had a banner message asking to either 1) allow return,
or 2) ignore

I checked allow, and this is what the EL account received:
"This is a Return Receipt for the mail that you sent to xx...@yahoo.com.

Note: This Return Receipt only acknowledges that the message was
displayed on the recipient's computer. There is no guarantee that the
recipient has read or understood the message contents."

[Grant Taylor]

On 5/31/19 7:42 PM, "\"Retired"@home.com wrote:
> I just did a test with RR checked from my main ISP (Earthlink) account
> to a Yahoo account I have.
>
> The Yahoo message had a banner message asking to either 1) allow return,
> or 2) ignore

Intriguing.

Thank you for sharing your findings.

> I checked allow, and this is what the EL account received:
> "This is a Return Receipt for the mail that you sent to xx...@yahoo.com.
>
> Note: This Return Receipt only acknowledges that the message was
> displayed on the recipient's computer. There is no guarantee that the
> recipient has read or understood the message contents."

I'd be very curious to see the full message source of that message to
see if it's an industry standard MDN or if it's something Yahoo specific.

[Brian]

On 5/31/19 5:18 PM, David E. Ross wrote:
> If I send an E-mail message to a Gmail or Yahoo address with
> Thunderbird's option for a return receipt checked, do those services
> hornor the request? How about the option for delivery status
> notification?
>

I thought the delivery status notification was generated by your
outgoing SMTP server? I just tried one, and the DSN certainly came
from my mail host. It just confirmed that delivery to the server for
the target address had been successful.

Brian.

[Mr. Man-wai Chang]

On 6/1/2019 5:18 AM, David E. Ross wrote:
> If I send an E-mail message to a Gmail or Yahoo address with
> Thunderbird's option for a return receipt checked, do those services
> hornor the request? How about the option for delivery status
> notification?
>

Forget about this feature! Pick up a telephone, call that person
directly! ;)

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[Grant Taylor]

On 6/1/19 6:52 AM, Brian wrote:
> I thought the delivery status notification was generated by your
> outgoing SMTP server? I just tried one, and the DSN certainly came
> from my mail host. It just confirmed that delivery to the server for
> the target address had been successful.

Delivery Status Notifications /should/ be generated by the last server
in the chain that support DSNs.

If one of the down stream servers doesn't support DNS, then the server
sending the message to the non-DNS-aware server, will generate a the DSN.

That DSN is usually something along the lines of "The message was
delivered to a server that does not support DSNs.". This may be your
outgoing server if the next hop does not support DSNs.

[Grant Taylor]

On 6/1/19 8:40 AM, Mr. Man-wai Chang wrote:
> Forget about this feature! Pick up a telephone, call that person
> directly! ;)

No!

Delivery Status Notifications are quite useful for more than knowing
that the message made it to the destination.

You can also use DSN features to tell the servers that you don't want to
be notified if the message fails (bounces). This is nice for bulk email.

You can also use DSN features to specify what the original recipient
email address was. This is quite handy if things go through forwards.

You can also specify how much of the original message should be
returned, the entire thing, or just the headers. - I particularly like
this to avoid original body content possibly being caught by spam
filtering in a bounce message.

DSNs have a LOT more uses than just letting you know that the message
made it to the last server.

Also, remember that DSN just means that it was delivered and that
delivery ≠ display. That's where Message Disposition Notifications
(a.k.a. "read receipts") come into play. Even MDNs can't guarantee that
someone actually read the message. Instead, they only mean that the
message was displayed on screen (or possibly printer).

[Brian]

On 6/1/19 1:15 PM, Grant Taylor via support-thunderbird wrote:
> On 6/1/19 6:52 AM, Brian wrote:

>> I thought the delivery status notification was generated by your
>> outgoing SMTP server? I just tried one, and the DSN certainly came
>> from my mail host. It just confirmed that delivery to the server for
>> the target address had been successful.
>

> Delivery Status Notifications /should/ be generated by the last server
> in the chain that support DSNs.
>
> If one of the down stream servers doesn't support DNS, then the server
> sending the message to the non-DNS-aware server, will generate a the DSN.
>
> That DSN is usually something along the lines of "The message was
> delivered to a server that does not support DSNs.".  This may be your
> outgoing server if the next hop does not support DSNs.
>

Thanks for the correction. I guess I originally managed to pick an
e-mail address where the server was a direct connection from my
mailhost, because the successful delivery message was from a Pair
Networks server.

I just tried again with a message to a friend who lives in a remote
part of Australia, and this time, the DSN did indeed come from an
Australian server.

Brian.

[Mr. Man-wai Chang]

On 6/2/2019 1:20 AM, Grant Taylor wrote:
> On 6/1/19 8:40 AM, Mr. Man-wai Chang wrote:
>> Forget about this feature! Pick up a telephone, call that person
>> directly! ;)
>
> No!
>
> Delivery Status Notifications are quite useful for more than knowing
> that the message made it to the destination.
>
> You can also use DSN features to tell the servers that you don't want to
> be notified if the message fails (bounces). This is nice for bulk email.

> ....


This auto-magic response is not very far from a home call function, and
would definitely be a security vulnerability. I wouldn't even allow it
to fire at all. Bad idea... bad idea!

[Ant]

On 5/31/2019 2:18 PM, David E. Ross wrote:
> If I send an E-mail message to a Gmail or Yahoo address with
> Thunderbird's option for a return receipt checked, do those services
> hornor the request? How about the option for delivery status
> notification?

Many e-mail servers don't support them. I know Google and Yahoo! don't.
--
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[kes]

On 31/05/2019 23:18, David E. Ross wrote:
> If I send an E-mail message to a Gmail or Yahoo address with
> Thunderbird's option for a return receipt checked, do those services
> hornor the request? How about the option for delivery status
> notification?
>

If by 'TB option' you are referring to the check box
"When sending messages, always request a return receipt"
(under Tools> options> Advanced > Return Receipt)

....then the hint is in the flip side of those options:

"When I receive a request for a return receipt:
- /Never/ send a return receipt
- Allow return receipts for /some/ messages
- condition 1
- condition 2
- condition 3

Personally, I never allow the return of receipt. I note the *!ffing
busybody who has requested that notification and mark him/her down as a
prying PITA.

I am not sure if gmail or yahoo have such an option - if they do, I know
which options I would choose.

[Grant Taylor]

On 6/2/19 7:11 AM, Mr. Man-wai Chang wrote:
> On 6/2/2019 1:20 AM, Grant Taylor wrote:
>> Delivery Status Notifications are quite useful for more than knowing
>> that the message made it to the destination.
>>
>> You can also use DSN features to tell the servers that you don't want to
>> be notified if the message fails (bounces).  This is nice for bulk email.
>> ....
>
> This auto-magic response is not very far from a home call function, and
> would definitely be a security vulnerability. I wouldn't even allow it
> to fire at all. Bad idea... bad idea!

I find it ironic that you replied to the first part of my message where
I was stating that DSNs can be used to tell a receiving server to NOT
respond. Which seems in line with what you are now stating that you want.

[David E. Ross]

No, I was citing the options on the Write (compose) window reached via
[Options > Return Receipt] and [Options > Delivery Status Notification].

I normally do not want to request such feedback because (1) it can be
annoying to the recipients of my messages and (2) it would definitely be
annoying to me to keep receiving such feedback. Only on rare occasions
do I want such feedback because I need to know that the recipient at
least downloaded E-mail after I sent the message. If I do not get such
feedback, I would then resort to a phone call.

[Grant Taylor]

On 6/2/19 11:26 AM, David E. Ross wrote:
> No, I was citing the options on the Write (compose) window reached
> via [Options > Return Receipt] and [Options > Delivery Status
> Notification].
>
> I normally do not want to request such feedback because (1) it can be
> annoying to the recipients of my messages and (2) it would definitely
> be annoying to me to keep receiving such feedback. Only on rare
> occasions do I want such feedback because I need to know that the
> recipient at least downloaded E-mail after I sent the message.
> If I do not get such feedback, I would then resort to a phone call.

What you're describing sounds to me like Return Receipt. Delivery
Status Notification does something different. I think by default
Thunderbird only requests DSNs for failed delivery.

The old DSN Settings (2) add-on would allow changing other DSN options.
Sadly it's no longer compatible with contemporary versions of Thunderbird.

[Mr. Man-wai Chang]

On 6/3/2019 1:09 AM, Grant Taylor wrote:
>
> I find it ironic that you replied to the first part of my message where
> I was stating that DSNs can be used to tell a receiving server to NOT
> respond. Which seems in line with what you are now stating that you want.

Apologize for not quoting the rest of your reply then. But still, DSN is
just not a very reliable protocol.

[Grant Taylor]

On 6/3/19 3:01 AM, Mr. Man-wai Chang wrote:
> Apologize for not quoting the rest of your reply then. But still, DSN is
> just not a very reliable protocol.

I have found that DSNs for notification of delivery failure is 80% to
90% reliable.

I've also seen naming and shaming of ISPs that don't support failure
DSNs or that send non-standard DSN.

IMHO DSNs are MUCH more reliable than MDNs.

[Tanstaafl]

On 5/31/2019, 5:18:14 PM, David E. Ross <nob...@nowhere.invalid> wrote:
> If I send an E-mail message to a Gmail or Yahoo address with
> Thunderbird's option for a return receipt checked, do those services
> hornor the request? How about the option for delivery status
> notification?

You have received some answers, but nothing that really is fully complete...

RR (Return Receipt) is separate and distinct from DSN (Delivery Status
Notification).

Whether or not you get a RR depends totally on the receiving CLIENT/End
User.

An end user can configure their email client to automatically dispense
with RRs by either just sending them, never sending them, or prompting
the user (this is the default behavior in Thunderbird at least).

DSNs can be requested by the sender - and as someone else pointed out,
has some options for different conditions - but the result is entirely
SMTP server dependent and definitely not reliable. The last server in
the chain that supports DSN will respond as it is configured to respond.

But in short, both of these are never to be depended on for anything.

[Mr. Man-wai Chang]

On 6/3/2019 11:17 PM, Grant Taylor wrote:
> I have found that DSNs for notification of delivery failure is 80% to
> 90% reliable.
>
> I've also seen naming and shaming of ISPs that don't support failure
> DSNs or that send non-standard DSN.
>
> IMHO DSNs are MUCH more reliable than MDNs.

Some mail clients might not fire them, while some users might turn it
off. Also, a real email response is more useful than a DNS.

[Tanstaafl]

On 6/3/2019, 12:30:52 PM, Mr. Man-wai Chang <toylet...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 6/3/2019 11:17 PM, Grant Taylor wrote:

>> IMHO DSNs are MUCH more reliable than MDNs.
>

> Some mail clients might not fire them, while some users might turn it
> off. Also, a real email response is more useful than a DNS.

One thing I left out - MDN is another name for RR (Return Receipt), and
is, again, totally end user/Client oriented.

DSNs are totally server side, and there is nothing the end user can do
about what happens to any DSN requests for emails sent to them, that is
up to their server, but also depends on all of the servers in between,
so even if they run their own SMTP server and have it properly
configured, if there is a misconfigured server involved with any message
sent to them that hots an SMTP server that doesn't support DSN, then
their server won't even see it.

DSNs can be useful, but there is no guarantee they will work with any
given recipient - and may even work with one given recipient one day,
and not the next, of the SMTP hops change.