from Hacker News

Pluto Mail – Unsend Emails

by sazpaz on 4/6/14, 7:06 AM with 43 comments

• by lutusp on 4/6/14, 8:02 AM

  The linked article claims that an e-mail can be deleted from the recipient's email in-box, regardless of whether the recipient is running a Pluto client.

  Earth to Pluto ... assuming the received e-mail is a classic plain-text e-mail, that's impossible. Either the recipient is running a Pluto-compliant client, in which case the claim is true, or the recipient is not running a Pluto-compliant client, in which case the claim is false.

  The only way this could work is if the received e-mail has content linked to Pluto's site (example would be an HTML e-mail containing an iframe with hosted content), where the real e-mail is located. So ... they should be honest and say that.

• by h2s on 4/6/14, 12:21 PM

  Worth bearing in mind that this is effectively DRM for email, with all the negative connotations that DRM brings.

• by huhtenberg on 4/6/14, 9:24 AM

  The only way all claimed features can work is if the email body remains on their servers at all times. I.e. they send some sort of wrapper that either iframes the content or talks to the Pluto backend in some other form or fashion. Needless to say - good luck with that!

• by mkhpalm on 4/6/14, 9:30 AM

  Well, at least I'll know why I can't see certain people's emails. ;)

• by mariusz79 on 4/6/14, 3:10 PM

  If people decide that this is a good idea, I will have to an add automatic reply with something like

  " You use this crappy service either because:

  - You didn't spend enough time thinking about that email because you either want to edit it later, or delete it from my mail box

  - You expect me to answer by some specific date, which implies you want me to be on your schedule.

  - You want to violate my privacy by tracking if and when I read your email.

  You also require me to use a third-party service to read your email as a text. That's unacceptable.

  Remember you're trying to contact me, no the other way around. Send it plain text or don't send it at all. "

• by knz42 on 4/7/14, 6:44 AM

  There are a number of fundamental issues with this service.

  1. As a recipient my privacy is violated: a signal is sent automatically to the sender without my consent to signal when I open the message. A co-founder argues "the feature exists with other systems already": the difference is, these other systems are opt-in: as a recipient, I agree explicitly to read acknowledgements when I choose to download the alternative messaging client. As an e-mail recipient, I do not agree to this "service" and it is unethical to force it upon me.

  2. The "expire" feature breaks the workflow of most e-mail users I know, including myself. Most users will first open an e-mail, quickly scan it, then mark it for later in-depth processing. If the expire timer starts at the first open, chances are the e-mail will have disappeared by the time the recipient re-opens it later.

  3. The service breaks search: with Pluto mail stored at Pluto's servers, it is not possible to search across both Pluto and non-Pluto e-mails in one query.

  4. The strategy to "provide e-mail client plugins" is not scalable obviously, due to the wide diversity of clients actually used. (Did the founders make a market study of which clients are actually used? On mobile, my own analysis shows there are at least 6 different apps in wide use. On desktop, at least 4. The development overhead of providing plugins to all is huge.)

• by capybaraz on 4/6/14, 7:09 PM

  Thanks for the comments everyone. Given the low cost of storage, today the default assumption is that email and anything you post online is permanent. The grand vision of Pluto is to grant people more control over their online footprint, starting with email. We realize Pluto is not a complete solution to “email privacy.” However, Pluto is an improvement over how email works by default.

  David and I hate the fact that, as soon as we hit send, we lose control of who can access the content and for how long the content can be accessed. We know that Pluto may not make sense for all emails but we believe there is a large set of emails for which it does. We also know there is a niche of users (like ourselves) who want most of our emails to expire.

  If you all have any more questions, please email me @ lindsay@plutohq.com. Thanks :)

  Lindsay, Co-Founder @ Pluto Mail

• by ceejayoz on 4/6/14, 12:36 PM

  Interesting approach, but the image approach means if they go down, your email all disappears.

• by asadlionpk on 4/6/14, 9:40 AM

  Good effort. But the idea is kinda broken to me. Very much like snapchat is never going to actually work like it is advertised.

• by joshribakoff on 4/6/14, 9:36 AM

  This is constructive criticism, but your landing page is like really wordy, to the point the average user would not take the time to read it all. I wonder if it could be improved by putting more pictures & less words?

• by nkrba on 4/6/14, 9:04 AM

  This sounds great. Maybe 2014 will be the (attempted) return of privacy. Anonymous messaging, expiring emails, pseudonymous payments, etc.

• by ecnahc515 on 4/6/14, 5:39 PM

  This reminds me of priv.ly which allows you to always retain full control of your content