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Privacy implications of email tracking [pdf]

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Re: Privacy implications of email tracking [pdf]

#21

Post by timthorn »

avh02 wrote: post #13
rypskar wrote: post #10

It is a bit fun how some think they can track if I open emails from them or not. I have several times got email with something like "we see you are not reading the emails you get from us, so we will remove you from our list". I did read the emails using Thunderbird, so was only their tracking that didn't work. But this is maybe what we get when most read emails in web apps from companies that want to track everything…

oh god I wish spammers did this. Imagine: "we notice you don't care about our spam advertising, we'll remove you from our list" heaven.

We do get that in the UK

Re: Privacy implications of email tracking [pdf]

#22

Post by eli »

rypskar wrote: post #10

It is a bit fun how some think they can track if I open emails from them or not. I have several times got email with something like "we see you are not reading the emails you get from us, so we will remove you from our list". I did read the emails using Thunderbird, so was only their tracking that didn't work. But this is maybe what we get when most read emails in web apps from companies that want to track everything…

Gmail actually takes steps to protect privacy when loading images. Apple's mail apps are the ones that load images indiscriminately. Pretty sure that's for UX reasons not ads.

Re: Privacy implications of email tracking [pdf]

#23

Post by gvb »

avh02 wrote: post #13
rypskar wrote: post #10

It is a bit fun how some think they can track if I open emails from them or not. I have several times got email with something like "we see you are not reading the emails you get from us, so we will remove you from our list". I did read the emails using Thunderbird, so was only their tracking that didn't work. But this is maybe what we get when most read emails in web apps from companies that want to track everything…

oh god I wish spammers did this. Imagine: "we notice you don't care about our spam advertising, we'll remove you from our list" heaven.

I've gotten that but it is an unfulfilled promise. It was just another cheap trick to attempt to get me to click their link.

Re: Privacy implications of email tracking [pdf]

#24

Post by wlkr »

As others have pointed out, the best solution is to configure your email client(s) to your security preference but it's worth noting that some companies will give you the choice of plain text emails over HTML. I was pleasantly surprised to find Amazon (at least in the UK) offer this.

Re: Privacy implications of email tracking [pdf]

#25

Post by skrebbel »

Folks, every email client and service has an option to not auto-download images. Plenty have it on by default (MS Outlook, notably). All of them ought to (IMO), but it's better than nothing.

I warmly recommend you turn it on. There is no need to switch to text-only email clients just because of tracking.

Re: Privacy implications of email tracking [pdf]

#26

Post by alex-e »

cimm wrote: post #6

I simply stopped reading HTML emails and read everything in plain text. Works fine for most of the emails I receive, the ones that don't are almost always marketing emails anyway. I do realise clicking tracking links still works but they are way more visible in plain text mode and it's not that hard to copy & paste the relevant part of the link. Too bad most email clients have removed plain text rendering these days.…

> Too bad most email clients have removed plain text rendering these days. I also haven't found a good mobile plain text email client yet.

eul [1] only has plain text rendering. It only supports Gmail right now, but a full-fledged email client is coming soon. A mobile app will be released in early 2018.

[1] https://eul.im

Re: Privacy implications of email tracking [pdf]

#27

Post by discreditable »

pjmlp wrote: post #14
cimm wrote: post #6

I simply stopped reading HTML emails and read everything in plain text. Works fine for most of the emails I receive, the ones that don't are almost always marketing emails anyway. I do realise clicking tracking links still works but they are way more visible in plain text mode and it's not that hard to copy & paste the relevant part of the link. Too bad most email clients have removed plain text rendering these days.…

I use Thunderbird with automatically downloads disabled. Same on GMail app.

Thunderbird with Simple HTML view is my favorite. It strips the remote content and fluff, while allowing simple things like bold and tables.

Re: Privacy implications of email tracking [pdf]

#28

Post by PrivWeeble »

At least we have some control over the exposures discussed in the paper. Very many companies are exposing (sensitive) information to third-party email delivery services, customer feedback and polling services, etc. Thus creating a privacy issue (and in some cases, a serious one) even before the email arrives at the recipients' server.

Re: Privacy implications of email tracking [pdf]

#29

Post by nsomaru »

jlgaddis wrote: post #18

This is why I still love and use mutt (NeoMutt, technically) even after all these years. I occasionally do fire up Thunderbird but only for those extremely rare cases where I actually do need to be able to read an HTML e-mail.

Surely there's a way to pipe an html email to $BROWSER from [neo]mutt?

Re: Privacy implications of email tracking [pdf]

#30

Post by vim_wannabe »

skrebbel wrote: post #25

Folks, every email client and service has an option to not auto-download images. Plenty have it on by default (MS Outlook, notably). All of them ought to (IMO), but it's better than nothing. I warmly recommend you turn it on. There is no need to switch to text-only email clients just because of tracking.

Does that help though?

I've used Airmail for a long time with "Autoload Remote Images" off and thought it worked. Then couple months ago I installed Little Snitch and saw the client contacting all kinds of places. I had to explicitly deny connections to all other domains except my email provider's.

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