Email Tracking via Stripped File Wrappers
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current email tracking technologies, such as web bugs, are unreliable due to their ability to be prevented by email clients and filtered out at the server level, making it difficult to confirm electronic delivery or verification of emails with high reliability.
Innovation Solution
The method involves adding multiple file wrappers of metadata to an email, which are stripped off by mail servers during transmission and sent back to the sender, providing information on the email's location and route, allowing the sender to determine its status and ensure delivery.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If web bugs are used for email tracking, then email delivery verification is enabled, but reliability is reduced because web bugs can be prevented by email clients and filtered at server level
Solution Approach 1:
The tracking system is segmented into multiple independent components: file wrappers are added to the email, each containing tracking information. As the email passes through different mail servers, separate notifications are generated at each transfer point, creating multiple independent tracking data points that collectively verify delivery without relying on a single vulnerable web bug
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces file wrappers and mail server notifications as intermediary elements between the sender and recipient. These intermediaries carry tracking information through the email transmission process, allowing verification without requiring the recipient's email client to execute web bugs or interact with tracking servers
2Reliability
If multiple file wrappers are added to track email route, then delivery verification reliability is improved, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
File wrappers containing tracking information are added to the email in advance before transmission begins. The tracking infrastructure is prepared beforehand with predetermined notification mechanisms at various mail servers, allowing the system to capture routing information automatically as the email passes through each server without requiring complex real-time processing
Solution Approach 2:
The mail servers themselves generate the tracking notifications automatically as they process and transfer the email. Each mail server that handles the email generates a notification containing routing information, which is then sent to the sender. This self-service approach eliminates the need for complex external tracking infrastructure while maintaining reliable verification
Data Source
AI summary
An electronic communication such as an email may have multiple file wrappers of metadata added to it by a sender. Each time the email passes to a mail server during its transmission from the sender to a recipient, one of the file wrappers may be stripped off by the mail server and sent to the sender. The information sent back to the sender with the file wrapper may comprise the server name and Internet protocol (IP) address of the computing device the mail server received the email from and the name of the mail server itself, along with a timestamp. In this manner, the sender may be apprised of the location of the email at all times during its transmission, and may be apprised of the route it took during its transmission.