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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'

#281

Post by cpuguy83 »

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…

Really makes you think about the real reasons RSS was killed basically overnight.

Re: Spy pixels in emails 'have become endemic'

#282

Post by goostavos »

beckingz wrote: post #216
relix wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe it's because even though most newsletters are acting 100% legit (it would be pretty hard to keep going if not), there's always a few that would act like jerks and not actually unsubscribe you, or make you jump through extra hoops. Even if that's only 5% of the newsletters, those are the times that you as the reader would remember happening. A smooth unsubscribe experience is not memorable. It's worse becaus…

And then there are services that require you to log in to unsubscribe...

I encountered one where trying to unsubscribe required me to not just log in, but, if I wanted to change my email settings, also enter a password. However, this site used single sign on, so... there was no password to enter.

I've given up on unsubscribing the 'right' way. Too much bs most of the time. It's now just mark as spam and move on.

Re: Spy pixels in emails 'have become endemic'

#283

Post by eli »

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.

Anti-spam technology forces newsletter publishers to do this. For example, gmail punishes senders who send too many messages that recipients don't interact with.

Re: Spy pixels in emails 'have become endemic'

#285

Post by relix »

hedora wrote: post #273
relix wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that doesn't stay contained for those few users. If a certain number of users mark your confirmation email as spam, your reputation suffers and there's a higher likelihood that suddenly your emails get sent to spam for all other users, because of that reputation hit.

I’m continuously surprised to learn about all the little ways Google makes my internet experience worse, even though I don’t use their services. Is there a reliable way to tell if an account is forwarding to Gmail? That way, you could reserve your spammer tools (not judging you for using them) for gmail users, and treat the rest of your subscribers with the respect you clearly intended.

Unfortunately I don't believe this is limited to Google. For example Yahoo lists the same best practices on their bulk sending best practices: https://postmaster.verizonmedia.com/best-practices

Re: Spy pixels in emails 'have become endemic'

#286

Post by mappu »

eli wrote: post #284
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.

ALL of the top 10 email clients download external images by default.

My Thunderbird doesn't. Is it no longer in the top 10? (Was it ever in the top 10?)

Re: Spy pixels in emails 'have become endemic'

#287

Post by kelnos »

Do people actually habitually load images in emails where they don't recognize the sender or don't have a specific reason to? IIRC the GMail default has forever been to not load images without an extra click. The only time I ever click that is if it's a personal email from someone I actually know, and I actually want to see the images.

Re: Spy pixels in emails 'have become endemic'

#288

Post by mattnewton »

CptFribble wrote: post #249

This seems like thinly veiled marketing for Hey? "There's a Big Scary Problem you probably didn't know about, according to the founder of a service that solves that problem." [Image of what it looks like when the Big Scary Problem is solved by the service.] [Flattering image of the service founder, and a reference to the service as 'premium.']

Came here to say this, and reference the pg article about “the submarine”. This reads like it was written by a PR firm.

As a Hey user, this is the least salient thing about the service to me, but maybe they think it is the best way to compete with Gmail?

Re: Spy pixels in emails 'have become endemic'

#289

Post by kijiki »

eli wrote: post #283
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.

Anti-spam technology forces newsletter publishers to do this. For example, gmail punishes senders who send too many messages that recipients don't interact with.

gmail presumably doesn't need to use a tracking pixel to determine if someone opened an email in the gmail interface...

Re: Spy pixels in emails 'have become endemic'

#290

Post by networkimprov »

CptFribble wrote: post #249

This seems like thinly veiled marketing for Hey? "There's a Big Scary Problem you probably didn't know about, according to the founder of a service that solves that problem." [Image of what it looks like when the Big Scary Problem is solved by the service.] [Flattering image of the service founder, and a reference to the service as 'premium.']

Yes, it's clearly a puff piece.

Can I bribe a BBC editor to get them to write about mnm & TMTP? :-)

It also prevents spy-pixels, and phishing, and provides unsubscribe (from threads, or senders, or whole sites).

mnm, an open source project to replace email & SMTP:

https://mnmnotmail.org

https://twitter.com/mnmnotmail

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