OK OK, update. I knew about this all long, but had forgotten about it. (Now I thought I just found some cool trick, I GUESS NOT!) check out this:
http://www.codeproject.com/KB/aspnet/etrack.aspx
I went to an interview and basically ended up telling the guy that the company was not for me. But I did learn something:
I found out how to track an email being opened, pretty cool trick, ready for this awesome trick?
When the email gets created in an app, a small 1px img is saved on the
server, a guid.gif, transparent gif. guid meaning like
der35d288d5jsk32.gif
This gif is added to the email address and when the email is opened,
the gif is pulled from the server, and on the server the folder has a
listener and when that gif is requested it takes the guid off the gif
and updates the database. Pretty cool...
Now doing it is really easy in the application, well kinda if you know
what you are doing. Then on the image folder, like emailpics needs a
listener service to "listen" when an image is open, when open, grab the
guid off the name of the image and update the database...