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Spy pixels in emails 'have become endemic'

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Spy pixels in emails 'have become endemic'

#131

Post by Tepix »

relix wrote: post #65
panic wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does this mean I’ll be automatically unsubscribed from a mailing list if my mail client doesn’t load the tracking pixel? How long does this take to happen?

Yes, if that newsletter is using best practices. The recommended period is 90 days I believe, but you can get send an email asking if you're still interested (and in that email, there will be a link you should click if you want to stay subscribed). You may have had this happen before and probably thought that was just a scammy way to get you to click a link, but in fact it's completely legit.

I don't load tracking pixels and I've never had it happen to me that I got unsubscribed because of that. I would be quite upset and would not consider it "best practise" - quite the contrary!

Re: Spy pixels in emails 'have become endemic'

#133

Post by richrichardsson »

munchbunny wrote: post #49
wahern wrote: post #9

Earlier 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.

Unless I'm mistaken, Gmail's setting "Ask before displaying external images." should address this issue.

It does indeed, however it really ought be enabled by default rather than having to hunt it down in the settings, something most users won't do.

Re: Spy pixels in emails 'have become endemic'

#134

Post by Tepix »

wahern wrote: post #9
pfundstein wrote: post #4

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.

Are you sure that the iOS mail app loads these images by default?

Re: Spy pixels in emails 'have become endemic'

#137

Post by tabs_masterrace »

Few years back when awareness about email tracking wasn't so common, I noticed often I after I looked at one of those recruiter spam emails, they'd call my phone 5 minutes later. Just downright creepy stuff. Leaned to disable "Load remote content" since then. Unfortunately it's on by default and many less technical users probably have no idea what's happening.

Re: Spy pixels in emails 'have become endemic'

#138

Post by relix »

fraudsyndrome wrote: post #125
relix wrote: post #50

If 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 do…

> Since people are already weary of clicking the unsubscribe link Can you please elaborate on this? Do you mean people intentionally avoid this because it leads to the advertisers marking that as "read" and therefore a live user? Asking because I recently purged my old emails which had thousands of emails, they obviously never stopped sending even with zero interaction. But my method was to click the unsubscribe link…

I don't think anyone should be scared of pressing the unsubscribe button in 2021. This was a common belief back in 1999, but I don't believe that should be anymore: spammers (legit spammers) don't care that there's an actual person on the other side. If the email address did not exist, the legit ISP's would have sent a notification on the feedback loop to the newsletter already, saying that this address does not exist. I think there's nowadays very little gain if any for bad actors to be had by letting them know you exist by clicking a link.

My belief about people being weary of the unsubscribe button are elaborated on here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26164450

Re: Spy pixels in emails 'have become endemic'

#139

Post by Nextgrid »

Tepix wrote: post #134
wahern wrote: post #9

Earlier 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.

Are you sure that the iOS mail app loads these images by default?

Yes it does. It's one of the first things I disable when setting up a new phone.

Re: Spy pixels in emails 'have become endemic'

#140

Post by lloydatkinson »

relix wrote: post #50

If 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 do…

Redirecting through your own domain sounds like a good solution - not sure how I would do that with my Netlify/Nuxt based site though.
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