can open email tracking be trusted ?

[johnny]

hi !

I use to track ( with an image with id attached to its link ) the
opening of some html messages ( don't worry I am not a spammer,they are
newsletters sent to the salesforce ).
Today I received a reply from one of the recipients who told me he just
read today my email 'cause he now uses a different mail address while I
knew he read it 2 weeks ago.
My question is : did he just lie to me or using an image within the
body of the message is not such a good method ?
I know that messages could be read offline or with images turned off so
there could be more readers than the ones actually tracked, but this is
the opposite case.
I wonder how the tracking showed me the opening of the email if he
didn't use that account...

what do you think ?

johnny

[Gordon Burditt]

>I use to track ( with an image with id attached to its link ) the

opening of some html messages ( don't worry I am not a spammer,they are
newsletters sent to the salesforce ).
Today I received a reply from one of the recipients who told me he just
read today my email 'cause he now uses a different mail address while I
knew he read it 2 weeks ago. My question is : did he just lie to me or using an image within the
body of the message is not such a good method ?
Some virus scanners (on mail servers, among other places) have the
ability to fetch links and images and scan those, so they can
eliminate emails with links to viruses. These will generate false
"mail has been read" hits.

Outlook may generate hits for email displayed in the preview pane
without anyone actually looking at it or clicking on it. In this
way, Outlook can catch viruses unattended with nobody operating the
mouse. I think Microsoft considers this to be a feature.
I know that messages could be read offline or with images turned off so
there could be more readers than the ones actually tracked, but this is
the opposite case.
I wonder how the tracking showed me the opening of the email if he
didn't use that account...

what do you think ?

If I catch trackers in email sent to me, your email address and probably
IP netblock goes into spam filter blacklist.

Gordon L. Burditt