Conditional email
From: "ImmunoChemistry Technologies" <email@immunochemistry.com> Subject: Visit us at AACC 2022! Date: Mon, 13 Jun 2022 15:09:05 -0400
Although I received this message in my professional account inbox, it's not a predatory solicitation. Just a bog-standard commercial one. And the message itself isn't worth commenting on, except possibly to note the footer:
This message was sent by ImmunoChemistry Technologies | PO Box 1560 | Davis, CA 95617-1560
Clearly, the mail server is in a different timezone to Davis, CA. It could mean anything or nothing. But that's by-the-by.
What really caught my eye, because I'm such a sad bastard, was the conditional comments in the HTML code.
<!--[if (gte mso 9)|(lte ie 8)]></td><![endif]-->
<!--[if (gte mso 9)|(lte ie 8)]></tr></table><![endif]-->
Essentially, this is applying code if the user agent—the email reader software—is either M$ Outlook 2000, and later versions, or Internet Explorer version 8 and earlier. For perspective, IE9 was released in 2011. For additional perspective, the recipients of the mail are sophisticated professionals working in the life sciences. I can't imagine that any of them are using IE8, and if they are they probably cannot afford ImmunoChemistry Technologies' services. So the check for versions of IE earlier than 9, or any version for that matter, is largely superfluous.
But the other thing that it suggests is that Outlook has a past-its-best rendering engine, if it behaves in the same manner as IE8. And, all of a sudden, memories of the bad old days came flooding back.