Re: How to know whether a person clicked a link in an email

[dmbrown -at- brown-inc -dot- com]

That was *supposed* to say:


Lou Quillio describes a binary world, in which his way is right and
everyone else's is wrong.  Life is seldom so simple...or maybe simplistic.

Imagine a company that has requested and received your permission to
send information to you by e-mail.  Assume they've gone into great
detail about the kinds of e-mail they'll be sending and the fact that 
they'll be tracking your responses, even if you didn't pay any attention
to that information.

Each time they send you a mesage, they want to know how effective that
message was, so they can fine-tune future messages.  If that sounds
nefarious, remember that you gave them permission to send those
messages, and each message includes a *working* opt-out link.  They
don't want to send you spam--it's too easy for you to blacklist them.

(Did you know that one person on AOL marking a message as spam can
prevent e-mail from that sender from being delivered to ANYONE with an
AOL address?  "It wasn't spam?  I said you could send it?  Oops!  Sorry
about that." Funny, except those legitimate senders may never realize
their messages are being blocked.)

The company sending the message hopes to sell you something or entice
you to take some action (vote for their candidate, contribute to their
charity, whatever).  They want to know which subject line moves you to
open the message; which version of the message moves you to buy, vote,
or donate; which version goes straight into the junk folder or trash;
which link within the message gets you to act.

Remember, you told them it was OK to send the messages; they just want
to know which ones work.  The ultimate goal, of course, is never to send
you messages you don't want--to customize messages to you so that they
contain information only about the things you want, the candidates you
agree with, the charities you care about.

That's not spam.  In fact, it's an anti-spam tactic.

--David

P.S.  This subject is TOTALLY off-topic, but it's gone on a while, so I
      thought I'd put my two cents in, too.  I won't post on this topic
      again, though, because I'd prefer not to lose the privilege.  :)








^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Now Shipping -- WebWorks ePublisher Pro for Word! Easily create online
Help. And online anything else. Redesigned interface with a new
project-based workflow. Try it today! http://www.webworks.com/techwr-l

Doc-To-Help 2005 now has RoboHelp Converter and HTML Source: Author 
content and configure Help in MS Word or any HTML editor. No 
proprietary editor! *August release. http://www.componentone.com/TECHWRL/DocToHelp2005

---
You are currently subscribed to techwr-l as:
archiver -at- techwr-l -dot- com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-techwr-l-obscured -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Send administrative questions to lisa -at- techwr-l -dot- com -dot-  Visit
http://www.techwr-l.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.