Verifying message delivered to valid address

[Ray19]

I am using OL 2003 on a MS Vista Ultimate system and my ISP is att.yahoo
with a POP3 server.
I am interested in assuring that my message has been delivered to a valid
e-mail address. I have tried the message tracking feature but this does not
seem to work for my situation.
I have unchecked the Read receipt request but have left the Delivery receipt
request checked but I get no indication that the message was delivered to a
valid address.
I don't want my recipients to get the idea that I don't trust them and want
to know
when they read a message. That sends the wrong message!
However, I would like to know if the message was correctly delivered to a
valid address so, just in case, I am leaving the Delivery receipt checked.

However, I have a question - Occasionally, I mistakenly enter an address
incorrectly and send before I notice. When I do I seem to always, in time,
get the following message delivered to my in-box from my att.yahoo POP3 ISP.

"From: (e-mail address removed) [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Sunday, April 27, 2008 6:31 PM
To: (e-mail address removed)
Subject: failure (e-mail address removed)

Hi. This is the qmail-send program at yahoo.com.
I'm afraid I wasn't able to deliver your message to the following addresses.
This is a permanent error; I've given up. Sorry it didn't work out.

<[email protected]>:
Sorry, I couldn't find any host by that name. (#4.1.2)
I'm not going to try again; this message has been in the queue too long."

My question is - If I send a message to an address that is no longer active,
i.e., the recipient has changed the address or otherwise made it inactive,
will I usually get such a message as the foregoing? If so, then I could
assume that if no such message was returned that my e-mail was successfully
delivered? If so, then this would be a back-handed way to obtain a delivery
receipt -- by omission -- Is that correct?
Because some of my recipients often change their e-mail addresses when they
become overloaded with intrusions and sometimes fail to notify all their
correspondents of such a change I am looking for a way to insure that my
messages are delivered to an active e-mail address; and then I will assume
that it is read.
Any additional input would be appreciated.
Ray19

 

[Brian Tillman]

I am using OL 2003 on a MS Vista Ultimate system and my ISP is
att.yahoo with a POP3 server.
I am interested in assuring that my message has been delivered to a
valid e-mail address. I have tried the message tracking feature but
this does not seem to work for my situation.

Many servers will not honor delivery receipt requests.

 

[Ray19]

Thanks for your response Brian,
Does that also mean that many servers will not repond if they are unable to
deliver messages (even without a tracking request) such as the example I gave
of my yahoo sbc server?

 

[N. Miller]

Does that also mean that many servers will not repond if they are unable to
deliver messages (even without a tracking request) such as the example I gave
of my yahoo sbc server?

Your Yahoo! will always respond to you, if the address you sent to was
invalid. If the transaction between the remote gateway mail server and the
Yahoo! MTA fails, the Yahoo! server will send you a Delivery Status Notice
briefly describing the nature of the failure.

However, some gateway mail servers (the ones serving your recipient) will
accept undeliverable email; then silently drop it because sending a response
could go to a forged sender email address (called, "backscatter"). You can't
guess at the behavior of domain gateway (MX) mail servers which don't serve
you.

Delivery and Read receipts, outside of a closed, enterprise environment, are
iffy things at best, and you should not count on them.

The only positive response of non-delivery you will get is when your
outbound MTA fails to deliver to the remote gateway mail server.

 

[Ray19]

Norman,
Thanks for your informed detailed reply. Your answer was very thorough and I
appreciate the time you took to provide such a detailed answer to my query.
You have my best wishes for continued success in all your endeavors.
Ray19