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Spy pixels in emails 'have become endemic'

bbc.co.uk

11–20 of 341 posts

Re: Spy pixels in emails 'have become endemic'

#11
post #8

I can't think of any email clients that automatically download external images by default. The article seems to be over-blowing the issue a bit.

Gmail does. This is great for privacy because it destroys the usefulness of the tracking pixel to the marketer.

Eh... Not really... It's pretty easy to generate a unique image url per customer and use that to determine whether a customer opened the mail or not and it's about the same cost as a traditional tracking pixel, complexity-wise.

Re: Spy pixels in emails 'have become endemic'

#12

I can't think of any email clients that automatically download external images by default. The article seems to be over-blowing the issue a bit.

iOS mail, alas.

I just found it turned on. I forgot to disable it again after my annual OPSEC-cosplay device-wipe.

Re: Spy pixels in emails 'have become endemic'

#13
post #9

I can't think of any email clients that automatically download external images by default. The article seems to be over-blowing the issue a bit.

GMail displays them. It uses a proxy for downloading, but I don't think that matters unless they're preloading all images unconditionally upon server-side receipt of the message. Apple's macOS Mail.app client displays external images by default, as does their iOS app.

on iOS: turn that off with Settings > Mail > Load remote images

Re: Spy pixels in emails 'have become endemic'

#14
post #8

I can't think of any email clients that automatically download external images by default. The article seems to be over-blowing the issue a bit.

Gmail does. This is great for privacy because it destroys the usefulness of the tracking pixel to the marketer.

How?

     https://jioegijogeijesgioegeg.tracking.example.com/niowefioe.png?sdgsdbuegiu=rojpopwmrmwk
has four places to store unique information.

Does Gooogle's proxy remove all of them?

Re: Spy pixels in emails 'have become endemic'

#15
post #11
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gmail does. This is great for privacy because it destroys the usefulness of the tracking pixel to the marketer.

Eh... Not really... It's pretty easy to generate a unique image url per customer and use that to determine whether a customer opened the mail or not and it's about the same cost as a traditional tracking pixel, complexity-wise.

Indeed, the three email tracking services I'm familiar with (HubSpot, Yesware, and Outreach) all generate unique URLs per recipient. The only information you don't get for Gmail clients is location, but you get the most valuable info which is if/when/how many times the email is opened.

Re: Spy pixels in emails 'have become endemic'

#16

I can't think of any email clients that automatically download external images by default. The article seems to be over-blowing the issue a bit.

Many third-party mobile email clients I've used in the past never gave you the option of disabling image loading, though some of them finally added the feature after many years (e.g. Outlook).

Re: Spy pixels in emails 'have become endemic'

#17
post #15
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh... Not really... It's pretty easy to generate a unique image url per customer and use that to determine whether a customer opened the mail or not and it's about the same cost as a traditional tracking pixel, complexity-wise.

Indeed, the three email tracking services I'm familiar with (HubSpot, Yesware, and Outreach) all generate unique URLs per recipient. The only information you don't get for Gmail clients is location, but you get the most valuable info which is if/when/how many times the email is opened.

I remember reading that gmail caches these images, rendering the how-many-times useless.

Re: Spy pixels in emails 'have become endemic'

#18
post #11
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gmail does. This is great for privacy because it destroys the usefulness of the tracking pixel to the marketer.

Eh... Not really... It's pretty easy to generate a unique image url per customer and use that to determine whether a customer opened the mail or not and it's about the same cost as a traditional tracking pixel, complexity-wise.

Does Gmail download by default, whether you open the email or not?

Re: Spy pixels in emails 'have become endemic'

#20
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, the three email tracking services I'm familiar with (HubSpot, Yesware, and Outreach) all generate unique URLs per recipient. The only information you don't get for Gmail clients is location, but you get the most valuable info which is if/when/how many times the email is opened.

I remember reading that gmail caches these images, rendering the how-many-times useless.

GMail absolutely caches images. The cache is primarily for performant delivery of data over mobile networks though and reduced load of repeat same-day viewing, and less for privacy.

While their cache is large, it's not infinite. If what you're interested in is whether a customer engages with an email multiple times over a few days, you'll likely get the pixel hits to confirm it over that time period. Of course, as you imply, you wouldn't be able to collect how many times an hour a single customer has viewed an email sent to them.

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