5 ms·

So we need a cloud service for "read receipts"? Interesting.

timdorr 10y ago
Since those are accomplished via a tracking pixel in the email and you need to serve that image from a public server, then yes, you'll need a cloud service to run that. As stated before, you can choose to run that server yourself if you don't trust Nylas with that kind of data.
- frik 10y ago
  Neither MS Outlook nor GMail use a tracking pixel. Such pixel are only used by newsletter or shaddy spam senders.
  - davecap1 10y ago
    There are other mail clients that use tracking pixels, like Polymail and Canary.
    - thedaniel 10y ago
      The parent mentioned probably the two biggest mail clients in the world, and you mentioned 2 that I haven't heard of despite 20 years of sending email and toying around with new software.. I'm not sure it's an effective rebuttal.
  - treehau5 10y ago
    Tracking pixels are ubiquitous, and used in virtually almost every situation where you want to know if a person opened your email, which equates to virtually all ecommerce in my experience.
    - frik 10y ago
      As you said, in newsletter/spam business. But common mail apps don't do that - there is already a defacto standard for that. It's clear that Nylas business is around tracking and collecting data. It's like Win10, the user is the product and everything gets collected. Good that Outlook and other mail apps blocks third party pictures by default.
- jcranmer 10y ago
  Or you could implement RFC 3798, an update of RFC 2298. It's not like these things haven't been standardized for almost 2 decades.
  - karim 10y ago
    Unfortunately, standardization != widespread use. Tracking pixels are still the most reliable way to know whether a recipient (or many) opened your message.
    - jcranmer 10y ago
      Unless your recipients use email clients that don't load remote http images except on demand. I can think of one email client with ~15 million users that does that.
      - thatcat 10y ago
        Which client blocks remote images by default? Is it a cli or gui?
        deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
        JelteF 10y ago
        I think he meant Gmail
        mericsson 10y ago
        https://techcrunch.com/2016/02/01/gmail-now-has-more-than-1b-monthly-active-users/ https://techcrunch.com/2016/02/01/gmail-now-has-more-than-1b...
        carussell 10y ago
        More like http://quetzalcoatal.blogspot.com/search/label/mailnews http://quetzalcoatal.blogspot.com/search/label/mailnews
- ascom 10y ago
  I haven't been able to find the tracking pixel server on GitHub.
- hota_mazi 10y ago
  So this won't work with emails coming from Gmail (and probably other providers) since these services cache these images on their server as soon as they receive them (and not when recipients open them) precisely to defeat this kind of tracking. And of course, a lot of email clients only open such images on demand anyway.
  - iancarroll 10y ago
    I don't believe this is correct. Gmail will only request an image to proxy once you've opened the email, according to MailChimp, so this would only prevent tracking multiple opens. http://blog.mailchimp.com/how-gmails-image-caching-affects-open-tracking/ http://blog.mailchimp.com/how-gmails-image-caching-affects-o...
    - hota_mazi 10y ago
      It's actually hard to track down exactly when these images are cached. I don't really trust MailChimp to be truthful about this but I also can't find any specific from Google themselves about whether that caching happens when their SMTP receives the email or when the user actually opens the message. Since Google's goal with this was clearly to defeat tracking, I would strongly expect the former, but I can't back this up.

Since those are accomplished via a tracking pixel in the email and you need to serve that image from a public server, then yes, you'll need a cloud service to run that. As stated before, you can choose to run that server yourself if you don't trust Nylas with that kind of data.

frik 10y ago
Neither MS Outlook nor GMail use a tracking pixel. Such pixel are only used by newsletter or shaddy spam senders.
- davecap1 10y ago
  There are other mail clients that use tracking pixels, like Polymail and Canary.
  - thedaniel 10y ago
    The parent mentioned probably the two biggest mail clients in the world, and you mentioned 2 that I haven't heard of despite 20 years of sending email and toying around with new software.. I'm not sure it's an effective rebuttal.
- treehau5 10y ago
  Tracking pixels are ubiquitous, and used in virtually almost every situation where you want to know if a person opened your email, which equates to virtually all ecommerce in my experience.
  - frik 10y ago
    As you said, in newsletter/spam business. But common mail apps don't do that - there is already a defacto standard for that. It's clear that Nylas business is around tracking and collecting data. It's like Win10, the user is the product and everything gets collected. Good that Outlook and other mail apps blocks third party pictures by default.
jcranmer 10y ago
Or you could implement RFC 3798, an update of RFC 2298. It's not like these things haven't been standardized for almost 2 decades.
- karim 10y ago
  Unfortunately, standardization != widespread use. Tracking pixels are still the most reliable way to know whether a recipient (or many) opened your message.
  - jcranmer 10y ago
    Unless your recipients use email clients that don't load remote http images except on demand. I can think of one email client with ~15 million users that does that.
    - thatcat 10y ago
      Which client blocks remote images by default? Is it a cli or gui?
      - deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
      - JelteF 10y ago
        I think he meant Gmail
        mericsson 10y ago
        https://techcrunch.com/2016/02/01/gmail-now-has-more-than-1b-monthly-active-users/ https://techcrunch.com/2016/02/01/gmail-now-has-more-than-1b...
        carussell 10y ago
        More like http://quetzalcoatal.blogspot.com/search/label/mailnews http://quetzalcoatal.blogspot.com/search/label/mailnews
ascom 10y ago
I haven't been able to find the tracking pixel server on GitHub.
hota_mazi 10y ago
So this won't work with emails coming from Gmail (and probably other providers) since these services cache these images on their server as soon as they receive them (and not when recipients open them) precisely to defeat this kind of tracking. And of course, a lot of email clients only open such images on demand anyway.
- iancarroll 10y ago
  I don't believe this is correct. Gmail will only request an image to proxy once you've opened the email, according to MailChimp, so this would only prevent tracking multiple opens. http://blog.mailchimp.com/how-gmails-image-caching-affects-open-tracking/ http://blog.mailchimp.com/how-gmails-image-caching-affects-o...
  - hota_mazi 10y ago
    It's actually hard to track down exactly when these images are cached. I don't really trust MailChimp to be truthful about this but I also can't find any specific from Google themselves about whether that caching happens when their SMTP receives the email or when the user actually opens the message. Since Google's goal with this was clearly to defeat tracking, I would strongly expect the former, but I can't back this up.