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Gmail blows up e-mail marketing by caching all images on Google servers

arstechnica.com

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Re: Gmail blows up e-mail marketing by caching all images on Google servers

#241

Post by mariodiana »

jfoster wrote: post #174
Dylan16807 wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

robots.txt is for crawlers, it would not stop an email client from rendering the email on behalf of its user upon receipt.

So then what gives Google the legal right to fetch, store, and re-serve the images?

I came here to say basically the same thing, so I'm going to chime in in support of what you're saying. If I'm a marketer and I send an email with a link to the image, and Google caches it in order to resend it for their own purposes (even if that's to shield their users from spam), how is that not a copyright violation? In this case, caching is no different than copying; and the kind of caching Google is doing in this instance is different than the caching an individual does via his browser, since the individual downloaded the image in the original instance.

Re: Gmail blows up e-mail marketing by caching all images on Google servers

#242

Post by jtheory »

eric_the_read wrote: post #215
curveship wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, do I understand you correctly that Google fetched the image even before you requested that images be displayed in the email? That seems like a boon to marketers, not a bane.

But if Google always fetches the images, then there's no way for the marketers to know if the email was actually opened or not.

Apparently Google does not always fetch the images.

But even if they did, this is still more information leakage than the old default (don't load images).

Spammers who email via botnets and the like, with false return addresses, doesn't get bouncebacks to clean their lists.

But if you (or Google, on your behalf) give them a hand by reliably loading their tracking image, that flags your email as a valid one.

If you weren't actually reading the email, that's still a false positive I don't think you'd benefit by giving.

Re: Gmail blows up e-mail marketing by caching all images on Google servers

#245

Post by jtheory »

spb wrote: post #100
plorg wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, but then Google's still making a request to, here, a user-specific URL. The spammer may not know where you are, but they now know that your address exists.

But they already knew that because they didn't get a bounce response.

They don't normally get bounce requests, though -- a tracking image is easier.

You've probably noticed that most spam comes from "borrowed" email addresses, not ones the spammer actually controls. If anyone ever sends a ton of spam with your email address on it (this has happened to me) it really drives the point home.

Re: Gmail blows up e-mail marketing by caching all images on Google servers

#246

Post by dinnison »

soundlab wrote: post #228

So how does this affect various email template applications such as Tout or Hubspot's Signals? IIRC Tout drops a pixel in each email and uses that as a primary tracking source for opens/CTRs etc...

curious about this too. guessing they will not work...

Re: Gmail blows up e-mail marketing by caching all images on Google servers

#247

Post by jtheory »

pud wrote: post #180
300bps wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who co-invented email image bugs with a million other programmers over 15 years ago, you are absolutely correct. (for the curious, my reason for coming up with it was to tell when a customer who requested a car insurance quote from the company I worked at read their email which instantly initiated an outbound call to them). The entire article is just plain wrong. For instance: This move will allow Google t…

Google could check if GUID_1.jpg is the exact same image as GUID_2.jpg. If the same, just show a cached version. No more tracking. (of course, email marketers would thwart this by making each image slightly different. google would respond by checking if the images are almost exactly the same. repeat. whack-a-mole ad infinitum).

Eh. When they fetch GUID_2.jpg to check its content, it's already too late at that point; the marketer has been notified that this particular user has opened the email.

Google might save themselves some storage space, but not anyone's privacy.

If Google changed their policy to fetch all images when the email is delivered, that basically delivers a false positive to all marketers/spammers/etc. -- which is better than more accurate info, but it's still worse than just not loading the images.

It's still a confirmation that the email address is valid, plus... who wants to give spammers (or marketers, for that matter) a false positive? The unsophisticated ones won't realize that it's a Google change; they'll just put you on the "interested" list and move on.

Re: Gmail blows up e-mail marketing by caching all images on Google servers

#248

Post by maccard »

pud wrote: post #180
300bps wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who co-invented email image bugs with a million other programmers over 15 years ago, you are absolutely correct. (for the curious, my reason for coming up with it was to tell when a customer who requested a car insurance quote from the company I worked at read their email which instantly initiated an outbound call to them). The entire article is just plain wrong. For instance: This move will allow Google t…

Google could check if GUID_1.jpg is the exact same image as GUID_2.jpg. If the same, just show a cached version. No more tracking. (of course, email marketers would thwart this by making each image slightly different. google would respond by checking if the images are almost exactly the same. repeat. whack-a-mole ad infinitum).

But you can't do that without requesting both images from the host.

Re: Gmail blows up e-mail marketing by caching all images on Google servers

#249

Post by natch »

vilhelm_s wrote: post #125
DannyBee wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It'd be nice to see these "early tests".

You can easily try it yourself. python -m SimpleHTTPServer 8080 creates a webserver serving the current directory, you can then create an email linking to a file in that directory and observe when it gets queried.

Easily is a bit of a stretch, because most users are on NAT setups and they would need to go into their router settings and know how to set them up to allow the external request to get through. So, yeah easily if (a big if) you know how to do that, or if (another big if) you are on a machine that is directly visible on teh interwebs.
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