Why aren't images and other content included in the email itself? It seems silly to send a link to an image rather than the image itself.
Gmail blows up e-mail marketing by caching all images on Google servers
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Re: Gmail blows up e-mail marketing by caching all images on Google servers
#12> E-mail marketers will no longer be able to get any information from images—they will see a single request from Google, which will then be used to send the image out to all Gmail users. Unless you click on a link, marketers will have no idea the e-mail has been seen.
Absurdly wrong, marketers already use a unique image URL for each email recipient, and Google has no way to know that all of those point to the same image. So they won't see "a single request from Google", they'll see one request from Google per successful delivery to an inbox.
Now, an open question is if Google will make that request when the email is actually opened, which would allow marketers to determine if and when the email was read by the user, or if Google will make the request as soon as the email is received. The latter would enhance users' privacy at the cost of bandwidth for Google, but early tests indicate that they don't actually do that, waiting for the user to click the email to make the request.
I'd like to add that there's no possibility the Gmail team is stupid enough to not have considered this. They must know full well what they're doing, and marketing this as a privacy enhancement when it's actually detrimental to privacy is willfully dishonest.
Re: Gmail blows up e-mail marketing by caching all images on Google servers
#13Seems pretty trivial for marketers to work around by making each image request a unique URL per-recipient. Assuming Google's proxy fetches the image when the user opens the email, you could use that technique to find out when a user reads the sent mail. You wouldn't get the IP address like you would with conventional bugging, but you could still find out how many users read the mail and what time they did so.
Mmm, it sounds like Google might deduplicate the images....
Re: Gmail blows up e-mail marketing by caching all images on Google servers
#14Seems pretty trivial for marketers to work around by making each image request a unique URL per-recipient. Assuming Google's proxy fetches the image when the user opens the email, you could use that technique to find out when a user reads the sent mail. You wouldn't get the IP address like you would with conventional bugging, but you could still find out how many users read the mail and what time they did so.
I think it caches them the moment the email is sent?
Re: Gmail blows up e-mail marketing by caching all images on Google servers
#15holy smokes google is going to further grow their monopoly and try to take over the advertising market with this.
They'll cache and own even more of your data and keep it out of the hands of spammers - in turn spammers will have to buy into google to get data about you.
This isn't for us, this was done to make money off of us.
Re: Gmail blows up e-mail marketing by caching all images on Google servers
#16So instead of my work mailing lists having accurate stats via ye olde tracking pixel, now only google does, which they will sell to their own chosen marketers and clients paying google's rate.
This isn't the privacy and common-sense win you think it is.
Re: Gmail blows up e-mail marketing by caching all images on Google servers
#17Holy crap. If I'm reading this right, this basically destroys all pixel tracking, so no more email open stats, no nothing.
You have no right to know what your users are doing after you send them a message. The privacy invading "tracking pixels" shouldn't exist in the first place.
Re: Gmail blows up e-mail marketing by caching all images on Google servers
#18> E-mail marketers will no longer be able to get any information from images—they will see a single request from Google, which will then be used to send the image out to all Gmail users. Unless you click on a link, marketers will have no idea the e-mail has been seen. Absurdly wrong, marketers already use a unique image URL for each email recipient, and Google has no way to know that all of those point to the same im…
In fairness, it's a partial privacy improvement - it masks IP and user agent, as well as repeat opens.
Re: Gmail blows up e-mail marketing by caching all images on Google servers
#19There seems to be a lot of misinformation flying around. Here's [0] Google's support doc that clears up some of it.
The most important part is at the end:
"In some cases, senders may be able to know whether an individual has opened a message with unique image links. As always, Gmail scans every message for suspicious content and if Gmail considers a sender or message potentially suspicious, images won’t be displayed and you’ll be asked whether you want to see the images."
So Google apparently does not see read receipts as a problem. The privacy and security protections are about preventing other information (like ip, browser headers, cookies) from leaking, rather than read notifications.
If you care about maintaining your privacy, I would recommend disabling the new functionality.
[0] https://support.google.com/mail/answer/145919?hl=en&ctx=mail
Re: Gmail blows up e-mail marketing by caching all images on Google servers
#20> E-mail marketers will no longer be able to get any information from images—they will see a single request from Google, which will then be used to send the image out to all Gmail users. Unless you click on a link, marketers will have no idea the e-mail has been seen. Absurdly wrong, marketers already use a unique image URL for each email recipient, and Google has no way to know that all of those point to the same im…
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