When folks known to you request return receipts for their e-mail, do you allow your e-mail client to respond?
Outlook usually asks me if I want to allow the return receipt or not, and I usually do, but I find the practice of asking for return receipts on every e-mail to be annoying. It’s almost like the sender is keeping a CYA file on you.
I don’t let it send the return receipt. I think that asking for a return receipt is kind of obnoxious, unless the sender thinks you might actually be dead or something.
I let them go through simply because I am always on top of email. Thankfully I don’t get them much. Probably because I do stay on top of it.
I have used it with certain coworkers in the past who have been really bad about checking email or who claimed to never get things. In that case, it WAS a CYA move on my part.
I never let them go through out of principle. I once had a graduate advsior that sent return receipts as a not so subtle hint that I was about to be in a world of hurt because of whatever mood disorder she was experiencing that day. I really don’t like them. If I want someone to know I read their e-mail, I will reply to them.
Unless it’s from my boss’s boss or something, I don’t let 'em through.
I won’t let them through either, for the same reasons THespos mentioned.
I too refuse read receipts. There are people at work who have them as the default on their messages. Frankly, people don’t need to know when I read their e-mail.
Good point, Jman - if I worked with someone who had that set as their default, I’d deny them, too. Hell, I’d probably ask them why they had that set up. Maybe they don’t even know!
Lately I’ve been getting them from folks on lists - c’mon, people - do you really want everybody on a list of hundreds to send you a “Yes, I got your e-mail?” Especially because your original e-mail was a “yeah, me too!” statement? Arrrgh.
Anyhow, as you might have guessed - no, I never let them go through! 
Work related, yes, no problem. In my former job, keeping control freaks beyond satisfied was part and parcel of every day.
Not work related, you gotta be kidding! There is nothing I do in my free time that is so important you need to keep a CYA file on me.
I only know one person that ever sends these to me, and I deny them on principle, even though she is a friend of mine. I find that practice to be very irritating, but not so much that I’ve ever felt a need to say anything to her about it.
As others have said, it’s not your business if and when I read your email unless I choose to make it your business. You may consider my response to be an affirmation.
I would, of course, feel differently if a superior within my own job used them, but I still wouldn’t like it.
If the message was sent on behalf of HR, Facilities, IT, or Security, I send the receipt. I figure they’re trying to forestall the average miscreant’s favorite excuse (“But I never saw that e-mail!”), so I don’t mind sending the receipt. If it’s from an individual I go case-by-case, but usually I decline to send it.
I’ve never gotten a “read receipt requested” regarding personal e-mail, even the odd bits that get sent to my work address.
To the best of my recollection, I’ve only known one person who has requested receipts. These emails came to my home address, and involved a group I am part of, so they went to a fairly large number of people.
I can’t speak for the others who received these, but I never let the receipt go through due to, like others here, just finding it irritating. I never spoke to the sender of these emails about it, but she quit including receipt requests pretty quickly. I suppose someone else may have spoken to her about it or she may have gotten very few receipts back, and so just gave up on it.