The same tracking functionality can be attached to logos in the email without raising any suspicion.
Spy pixels in emails 'have become endemic'
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Re: Spy pixels in emails 'have become endemic'
#42For legitimate email marketers these pixels are important to have because: 1. Helps to prune users who never open emails thus giving you a smaller more engaged list. 2. Helps to see if the content they are sending to users is leading to engagement so they can send better emails next time. Yes, yes I know. Why even send emails in the first place. All email marketing is not evil. But legitimate marketers have businesse…
The attitude you have that it's your right to know whether someone opened an email is the problem.
How you casually mention spying in to someone else's home and watching their actions as if it's perfectly normal is really creepy.
There's nothing 'legitimate' about those marketers, they're exactly the problem.
Re: Spy pixels in emails 'have become endemic'
#43https://mailtrack.io/en/ yeah. webmails open images by default so companies like these are charging top dollar for the priveldge
Roundcube doesn't.
good. i have recently switched to MIAB and the legacy has to be continued in parallel for some time but this is one of the benefits. nice
Re: Spy pixels in emails 'have become endemic'
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
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
recently i am seeing certain images still loaded, whereas in the past none loaded. i haven’t investigated what is different about these images yet, though. anyone else observe similar?
Re: Spy pixels in emails 'have become endemic'
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
on iOS: turn that off with Settings > Mail > Load remote images
recently i am seeing certain images still loaded, whereas in the past none loaded. i haven’t investigated what is different about these images yet, though. anyone else observe similar?
You can embed the image inside the actual multi-part message, and it will be shown without accessing network. It is usually used for logos, signatures and the such and, afaik, can't be used for tracking mail opening.
Re: Spy pixels in emails 'have become endemic'
#46What's the history behind allowing external images in emails? Was it a size limitation? HTML emails already use only a subset of HTML, so I don't understand why it wasn't trimmed down more to only allow images as data URLs or encoded in Base64.
Consider how many HTML emails the average person receives. Now add 2MB+ [0] for all the images that are attached to each of those emails. Then add the 33% overhead for Base64 encoding them. It adds up quickly. Before Gmail came along and drastically increased mailbox sizes, having images attached to every HTML email would quickly overwhelm typical mailboxes.
[0] https://www.litmus.com/blog/qa-with-mailcharts-on-email-file...
Re: Spy pixels in emails 'have become endemic'
#47This goes beyond nefarious marketing purposes - I know lots of people who have started to use open trackers in their personal emails!
In a certain way, for people who are now very accustomed to read receipts, it's a way of adding a modern feature to a legacy product.
Re: Spy pixels in emails 'have become endemic'
#48Is it a privacy concern if somebody sent me an email with my consent and wants to know whether I read it or is it just creepy if they start telling me That they saw I read the email?
Re: Spy pixels in emails 'have become endemic'
#49I 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.
Unless I'm mistaken, Gmail's setting "Ask before displaying external images." should address this issue.
Re: Spy pixels in emails 'have become endemic'
#50If you're running a mail newsletter, this tracking is pretty important. You're supposed to stop sending emails to someone who's not interacting with them, or you get an extra point towards being flagged as spam. Since people are already weary of clicking the unsubscribe link and instead casually mark everything as spam, every little bit towards keeping your reputation counts. It's a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation.
This is the reason why I had to implement a tracking pixel on https://hndigest.com
Tangentially related anecdote: I also had to implement redirects instead of direct linking to the stories: At one point a URL with the .tk TLD was at the top of HN, and as soon as I sent out the first email with that story in it, my email sending service immediately flagged my account as a spammer and blocked all my sending, because the .tk domain was such a red flag. Since then I redirect all stories through my own domain, to avoid any other TLD red-flags from crippling the service.
It's difficult running a legit DIY newsletter, every party involved is super suspicious and one wrong move or mistake can end it all.
Edit: A lot of people are wondering about why I think people press the spam button instead of unsubscribe, so let me elaborate a little more. HNDigest uses double opt-in (you receive a confirmation email which you need to click on before you're subscribed), listens to all feedback loops, has an instant unsubscribe button. We never spam or send emails that weren't requested by the user. By all accounts, it's a legit newsletter and I try to be as above board as possible.
Yet 30% of all unsubscribes happen because someone has marked the email as spam. I know this because this generates a notification on the feedback loop, and then I immediately stop sending of course. These are the facts. So, assuming HNdigest is not actually spamming (which is something I do believe), 1 out of 3 people click the spam button either by accident, or to unsubscribe.