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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'

#201

Post by mcv »

relix wrote: post #200
mcv wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I checked and found this: https://support.google.com/mail/answer/81126?hl=en It doesn't mention pixels anywhere, though. It does contain the line: > "Consider unsubscribing users who don’t read your messages." But that's only after lots of mention of opt-in and unsubscribe options. And ultimately, you can't really know whether users read your messages or not.

I'm glad you agree that it is indeed considered a best practice to automatically unsubscribe someone who legitimately subscribed, when they don't read your emails.

I guess blindly assuming that I agree fits the pattern here. I was actually pointing out that you cannot know whether they read your emails or not. Unsubscribing them before they don't load remote images is not the same thing, and is making a lot of assumptions that will be false for a lot of people.

Re: Spy pixels in emails 'have become endemic'

#202

Post by dalke »

wastholm wrote: post #59

What irks me is when email newsletters that I'm willfully subscribed to (the Economist comes to mind) inform me that "since I haven't been interacting" my subscription will be terminated. I have too been "interacting" (or as I call it, "reading") but my email client, very sensibly, doesn't load external resources, like pictures, willy nilly.

The ACS (American Chemical Society) did that to me.

Odd thing was, I wasn't on any of their mailing lists.

Which would explain why they didn't register a tracking pixel for a long time.

Re: Spy pixels in emails 'have become endemic'

#203

Post by plorg »

Nextgrid wrote: post #66
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…

I'm not sure why people would be wary of clicking the unsubscribe link on something they explicitly subscribed to in the first place. I mean, they trusted you enough to give you their email address to subscribe in the first place, right? The only scenario I can think of is when people didn't intentionally subscribe or were coerced into subscribing and those newsletters can go to hell and fully deserve to be marked as…

I keep a pretty tidy inbox by studiously unsubscribing from advertorial mail as soon as I receive it. I make no exceptions. Consequentially, it's fairly easy to notice when an unsubscribe action didn't work.

I've noticed a few times that a company I have unsubscribed from years ago will suddenly start sending me mail again. Usually I'll just re-unsubscribe and they'll go away again.

I've also had it several times that I clicked on an Unsubscribe link and the resultant page indicated I had been removed from the list but I continued to receive mail noticeably past the date indicated ("it may take up to a week for your name to be removed, as some mail is queued in advance"). Conveniently, when I followed the link with my ad blocker disabled the request succeeded (without any change in appearance), but I actually stopped receiving their spam.

I can't say anything about email newsletters, because I don't subscribe to them.

Re: Spy pixels in emails 'have become endemic'

#204

Post by relix »

mcv wrote: post #201
relix wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm glad you agree that it is indeed considered a best practice to automatically unsubscribe someone who legitimately subscribed, when they don't read your emails.

I guess blindly assuming that I agree fits the pattern here. I was actually pointing out that you cannot know whether they read your emails or not. Unsubscribing them before they don't load remote images is not the same thing, and is making a lot of assumptions that will be false for a lot of people.

What else do you think Gmail means, when they give those recommendations?

Using a tracking pixel isn't perfect, but like what peter said in another comment somewhere here, it's the best we've got. If you want to implement Gmail's (and other ISPs) best practices, then you need to do tracking of engagement. Just because you don't like it, does not mean that is not considered best practice. Just because it won't be 100% perfect, does not mean it's not considered best practice.

You may disagree that it should happen, but you cannot factually say it is not a best practice.

Re: Spy pixels in emails 'have become endemic'

#205

Post by eqvinox »

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.

My email client doesn't even have the capability to display images or download anything...

(It's mutt.)

Re: Spy pixels in emails 'have become endemic'

#206

Post by xnx »

xnx wrote: post #8
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 does. This is great for privacy because it destroys the usefulness of the tracking pixel to the marketer.

My mistake. It looks like google still waits for an initial email view to cache the image. Kind of wish they would load images for unviewed emails too.

Re: Spy pixels in emails 'have become endemic'

#207

Post by xnx »

Mulpze15 wrote: post #18
alaties wrote: 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.

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

I was confused on this, but it looks like the email has to be opened once for Google to cache the image.

Re: Spy pixels in emails 'have become endemic'

#208

Post by dubya »

jeroenhd wrote: post #79
thepete2 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There should be an unsubscribe email header for newsletters. Then it could even be a feature for mail clients.

Gmail has this, it's in one of the dropdown menus. If you mark something with the right email header as spam, it even ask if you wish to unsubscribe instead. Spam companies often use this to check if the email address they've targeted is real because they get callbacks from legitimate users. I've only seen one or two legitimate uses of the header as far as I can remember.

I think it used to be more prominent on gmail. Now it's a little link next to the name of the sender at the very top when the email is opened. But not all list messages have it, and for some, gmail even hides the unsubscribe link below a [Message clipped] link to the full email.

Re: Spy pixels in emails 'have become endemic'

#209

Post by jrootabega »

achairapart wrote: post #72
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…

And also because of this, if you're blocking tracking pixels in a privacy conscious way you often get removed from the mailing list without any notice, which is very frustrating. Or you get one of those mail saying "We are removing you from the list because you don't read our newsletter", often without offering any other confirmation signal. Basically they says "Let us track you or you are out of this list". And this…

Hell, my credit card company reverts to sending me paper statements if I haven't viewed their web bug in a long enough time. Doesn't matter that I use this advanced tool called a calendar to download the statement every month from their website.

So my reward for protecting my electronic privacy is to have my privacy violated through the USPS.

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