Is there any way to get proof that an email has or has not been delivered and/or read?

The short answer is: NO. There is no way to be absolutely sure that your email has or has not been read. However, there are programs that will do the best they can.
You can set up YOUR email to request receipts and set it up to respond to read receipt requests from other people but you have no control over how your recipients email will be set up.
But why not? Well, most email clients (Yahoo,Gmail etc.) do not respond to the request for receipts. This is to protect the users from SPAM. Imagine that you are a spammer and you send millions of emails to random names hoping that some of them will be real addresses. A read receipt tells them that they have a real address - now you can expect more Spam!
Even if your recipient allows read receipts he may chose not to send one for individual emails - including yours. Again, no proof.
There is a FREE program that many people use called MSGTAG that will send you an email when a message has been read. This works by inserting an embedded image in the email. If the recipient's email client or security software blocks images then it doesn't work.
What this means is that you CAN get a confirmation that your email has been read IF the system works.

Your email could have been read and you wouldn't know: there is no way to guarantee that you will get to know if and when a particular email has been opened.

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0 # Mrs. — Anne Brandt Dias 2012-02-03 15:47

Thanks - good to know the reason - better security!

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0 # The Evidence — twindine 2012-03-26 14:27

There is a new service that I've recently come across called the Evidence. I've used the service a couple of times and it works well. Basically you append a wildcard to the recipients email address called an eEvid. For example, if you were sending the email to johnsmith.com, you would actually send it to johnsmith.com.eevid.com. When the email gets to John Smith there is no indication that the email has been tracked (John Smith doesn't know) and neither does it ask John Smith to do anything. He is completely unaware of the fact the email has been certified. As the sender of the email you are immediately provided with a Certification of Proof (by email). Here's the website for the Evidence www.eevid.com/en/home. It's free for a limited use account.

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