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Question: I recently opened an e-mail message from a friend and got a strange pop-up message that said something like, "The Message sender has requested a response to indicate that you have read the message. Would you like to send a receipt?" What does this mean? (I use Outlook Express on a Windows machine.)

Answer: The message you described means that the person who sent you the e-mail is requesting an acknowledgement that you opened and read it. It's called a "Read Receipt" message. Most e-mail programs allow you to ask for Read Receipts when sending e-mail messages. Many also allow you to acknowledge Read Receipts when receiving these messages. E-mail software programs do not automatically send Read Receipt requests to e-mail recipients unless the sender first changes the settings on his/her e-mail software program. (See the tutorial section below.) The recipient can then authorize a reply message (receipt) to go back to the sender by clicking "OK" on the pop-up message or he/she can click "Cancel" which does not allow a receipt message to be sent back to its origin.