Briefs

InternetWeek (12/04/00) No. 840, P. 1; Kemp, Ted

New technology that places invisible HTML "bugs" in recipients' emails
to track their usage is becoming increasingly common, allowing
marketers more access to consumer and company information. The
technology has code that tells how often and when recipients look at a
particular email message, thereby alerting marketers to how effective
sales pitches and similar marketing endeavors are. Problems arise when
an email received by someone at work is then forwarded around the
company.

Vendor Internet Security Systems suggests that employees set their
email programs to alert them before they send return receipts to
senders, even though HTML tags buried in headers will probably hit the
remote Web server named in the tag when emails are viewed in preview
mode, thereby allowing email senders to collect data with cookies.

Security experts say company IT staffs can change all browsers so
cookies will be blocked. Although many marketers and email solicitors
have regulations restricting the unauthorized use or sharing of data
about individuals, many other vendors do not. For example, Korean firm
Postel Services throws Web bugs into clients' emails before sending
them to the recipient. Despite the controversy, the average company
that uses HTML bugs has a response rate of 13.5 percent as compared to
the average 5.4 percent that text-based non-spam emails generate,
attributable to the increased information that companies can obtain
about businesses and people by using tracking technology.  Therefore,
the practice is not likely to disappear anytime soon.

Source http://www.internetweek.com/lead/lead120100.htm