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We used to do that to track emails. Gmail's fix was to cache the emails' images on their own server, so it's only hit once. They also don't listen to selector:h
by Raphmedia 7y ago
We used to do that to track emails. Gmail's fix was to cache the emails' images on their own server, so it's only hit once. They also don't listen to selector:hover{} so you can't have hover effects.
- JoshTriplett 7y ago> Gmail's fix was to cache the emails' images on their own server, so it's only hit once. That doesn't solve the problem; email trackers could just use a unique URL per email.
- justinmchase 7y agoAnd they do that exactly. The fix is to disable images by default but every user has to manually do this.
- nerdponx 7y agoOr use an email client that disables images by default.
- dexterdog 7y agoI thought images were off by default
- Moru 7y agoNot in the Web client I'm afraid
- afiori 7y agoBut it does not matter, if google download all the images when for all your emails then showing them to you is just a fetch from their own servers. Similarly to the ad-blocking extension that clicked all ads on the page (in isolation) so that tracking would be useless.
- grifball 7y agoand then send many emails? is that an availability attack?
- ghayes 7y agoCouldn't google just hit the URL randomly themselves to throw off tracking, even if the email was never opened?
- babypuncher 7y agoThat would require Google to care about user privacy.
- callalex 7y agoCartels still like to take out their competition.
- eli 7y agoThis would actually be detrimental to users. Responsible email publishers use lack of opens as a signal to reduce volume of emails sent and, eventually, unsubscribing you automatically. Gmail causing a lot of bogus engagement would make it look like people can’t get enough of your content
- zbentley 7y agoI don't know why this is being downvoted. I work for an ESP, and this is an accurate statement. Whatever you think about marketing emails, you probably don't want gmail to simulate click traffic. Trust me.
- vxNsr 7y ago> Responsible email publishers I'd love to meet these people. I've yet to have a good email publisher experience. whether it's a fortune 500 co or the newest startup they all terribly abuse email. > unsubscribing you automatically What is this magic? I've never once been automatically unsubscribed from anything.
- judge2020 7y agoI believe mailchimp has something that automatically unsubscribes users if they haven't opened your emails for x time, but the amount of publishers that use this is probably pretty low.
- Thaxll 7y agoIt does solve the problem because Google download the image no mater what so you can't know if someone opened the image or not.
- forgotmypw3 7y agoGoogle's service delays downloading the image until the moment it is requested by the client.
- grifball 7y ago... and then do what?
- admax88q 7y ago> We used to that to track emails. Why are you contributing to the surveillance age of the internet?
- Raphmedia 7y ago"Sorry boss, please fire me and ask one of the 200 other employees here to use that system with built-in tracking to make a newsletter for this clothing brand."
- admax88q 7y agoTake some pride in your work. Software is literally the most in demand profession today, you don't have to work for corrupt employers. You can contribute something positive to society and still make decent money. In some other profession I'd make exceptions, but seriously the amount of money flowing to developers these days, there's no excuse to sell out.
- Raphmedia 7y agoWhat you describe as a corrupt employer is anyone that uses Mailchimp, SendinBlue, MailPoet, CampaignMonitor, Dotmailer, MailGet, etc. Do you think that companies who send newsletter do it without any traces of analytics? Every link is tracked, every image is tracked. On the web, there are heatmaps of every single mouse movement. Your keystrokes used to be tracked too, until GDPR hit. Anyone who works does analytics can play back the path visitors used to navigate on the site. It doesn't take any advanced team to do that. You simply drop a .js file from some third-party CND in your site's head and you have all that data. Any mom ? pop shop that has a website has access to that data. Everyone does it, that's the current state of the industry. To refuse work from anyone who does analytics would mean to leave the web industry. > but seriously the amount of money flowing to developers these days At the time, I was paid cad$40k/year. According to glassdoor.ca, the salary for the same position would be cad$59k/year today. Not everyone works from the inside of a bubble.
- admax88q 7y ago