Disable Automatic Read Receipts

[matty]

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
Processor: Intel
Email Client: Exchange

I've seen some other threads on here that talk about the fact that when an Entourage user reads a message with a Read Receipt enabled, the receipt gets sent with no prompt to the user. It's unclear to me what exactly causes the behavior, but it is an annoyance and a security hole that I'd like to get fixed. It is certainly strange that while Entourage has nothing to do with sending the RR, as many on this board insist, this issue only occurs when an Entourage user opens the message. IMAP, OWA, Outlook, Activesync, etc, do not exhibit this behavior.

Does anyone know of a way to block this behavior from happening?

 

[William Smith [MVP]]

I've seen some other threads on here that talk about the fact that
when an Entourage user reads a message with a Read Receipt enabled,
the receipt gets sent with no prompt to the user. It's unclear to me
what exactly causes the behavior, but it is an annoyance and a
security hole that I'd like to get fixed. It is certainly strange
that while Entourage has nothing to do with sending the RR, as many
on this board insist, this issue only occurs when an Entourage user
opens the message. IMAP, OWA, Outlook, Activesync, etc, do not
exhibit this behavior.

Does anyone know of a way to block this behavior from happening?

As stated before, Entourage by default has no idea what return receipts
are. That feature simply isn't built into it. The Exchange Server must
be sending the message.

You can test this by simply setting up a second account from another
service such as you home ISP (not Exchange) and having the same person
send the same message with the receipt request. He most likely won't
receive any confirmation that you've opened the message because most
ISP's don't support this feature.

Now, Entourage can be set up to respond to these receipt requests with
the help of AppleScript. Check Tools --> Rules... for something that the
Entourage user may have set up. This is not something he can
accidentally do. He pretty much needs to know what he's doing.

As far as blocking this behavior, this can be done at the Exchange
Server. Your administrator can strip out all receipt requests. Have a
look at this page for ideas:

<http://www.vamsoft.com/howto-readreceipt.asp>

Hope this helps!

--

bill

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