Getting text data from another server

[eluser]anndr0id[/eluser]
I have a website on another server I need to send a querystring to and it provides me with a number (not in XML, just a plain text #) and I'm having some problems with it. Hoping someone has had experience with this.

Code:

$user_email = "[email protected]"
$url = "http://www.server.com/home/main_servlet?COMMAND_CHECKOPTIN=" . $user_email;
$result = read_file($url);

In such case when viewing the $url in the browser it will be either "0" or "1", however I'm getting an empty return in the result for this query.

The only thing I'm thinking is its because the url is on a different server/site.. but they sent me this as their way to check e-mails, so there has to be some way to do it. The only other thing I was thinking is to take it out of PHP and send an AJAX request, but that seems like more work than its worth. Any suggestions??