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Every time you reply to an email it includes your location, and almost no one knows this either. Everyone who uses email is basically agreeing to a contract th

Every time you reply to an email it includes your location, and almost no one knows this either. Everyone who uses email is basically agreeing to a contract that they haven't read, and wouldn't understand even if they had read. Usually this doesn't matter, but occasionally weird things happen as a result. That's not to say that anything goes, but it's also important to look at this in context.

LUmBULtERA 7y ago
>it includes your location To be specific, it shows your public IP, right? Using a VPN means this will not show your location, correct?
- gumby 7y ago
  It shows your IP address to the machine you submit your message, and that SMTP server doesn't add the IP address in a Received: header, as mine does not, nobody else will know what IP address you used.
- voska 7y ago
  Same with Superhuman. They get location from the IP address, so using a VPN would "mask" your real location. Disclosure: SH user.
  - jpatel3 7y ago
    I think the problem is person on receiving end doesn't know that. also, at marketing level it happens with all mailchimp and other campaigns, but this is so explicit at the individual level.
mike-cardwell 7y ago
"Every time you reply to an email it includes your location, and almost no one knows this either." No it doesn't. If you're talking about leaking client IPs in received headers, some providers (including gmail) have excluded this information for some time. If you're talking about the timezone in the Date header. Fair enough. Someone can figure out what timezone you're in. Unless you change it to just be UTC or whatever. Or are you talking about something else?
- Alex3917 7y ago
  > If you're talking about leaking client IPs in received headers, some providers (including gmail) have excluded this information for some time. Sure, in the same way that some mail clients (like Thunderbird) don’t load tracking pixels by default. But if we’re going to talk about ethics and user expectations, I think that’s a reasonably fair comparison.
  - mike-cardwell 7y ago
    I don't think it's like that at all. I just sent my self an email from a gmail account, yahoo account and outlook live account. Not one of them included my IP address in the headers. I think your information is a bit out of date.
    - Alex3917 7y ago
      I mean in that case these services are just sending the email on your behalf, so it's their IP address that is included. But if you're sending the email yourself then it will be your IP address.
      - JeremyBanks 7y ago
        That might have been a valid argument in 1999, but in 2019 it's difficult to send an email yourself from a consumer IP address and actually have anybody on a major provider receive it. Major email infrastructure doesn't support those users any more; they're mostly irrelevant to the discussion.
        Alex3917 7y ago
        Gmail et al. still add the headers if you send the message through an actual email client though, just not if you send it through the web client. And I'm guessing that the vast majority of email users still use email clients at least some of the time, given that they work much better on your phone and they're the easiest way for consumers to have a backup of their email.

LUmBULtERA 7y ago

>it includes your location To be specific, it shows your public IP, right? Using a VPN means this will not show your location, correct?

gumby 7y ago
It shows your IP address to the machine you submit your message, and that SMTP server doesn't add the IP address in a Received: header, as mine does not, nobody else will know what IP address you used.
voska 7y ago
Same with Superhuman. They get location from the IP address, so using a VPN would "mask" your real location. Disclosure: SH user.
- jpatel3 7y ago
  I think the problem is person on receiving end doesn't know that. also, at marketing level it happens with all mailchimp and other campaigns, but this is so explicit at the individual level.

mike-cardwell 7y ago

"Every time you reply to an email it includes your location, and almost no one knows this either." No it doesn't. If you're talking about leaking client IPs in received headers, some providers (including gmail) have excluded this information for some time. If you're talking about the timezone in the Date header. Fair enough. Someone can figure out what timezone you're in. Unless you change it to just be UTC or whatever. Or are you talking about something else?

Alex3917 7y ago
> If you're talking about leaking client IPs in received headers, some providers (including gmail) have excluded this information for some time. Sure, in the same way that some mail clients (like Thunderbird) don’t load tracking pixels by default. But if we’re going to talk about ethics and user expectations, I think that’s a reasonably fair comparison.
- mike-cardwell 7y ago
  I don't think it's like that at all. I just sent my self an email from a gmail account, yahoo account and outlook live account. Not one of them included my IP address in the headers. I think your information is a bit out of date.
  - Alex3917 7y ago
    I mean in that case these services are just sending the email on your behalf, so it's their IP address that is included. But if you're sending the email yourself then it will be your IP address.
    - JeremyBanks 7y ago
      That might have been a valid argument in 1999, but in 2019 it's difficult to send an email yourself from a consumer IP address and actually have anybody on a major provider receive it. Major email infrastructure doesn't support those users any more; they're mostly irrelevant to the discussion.
      - Alex3917 7y ago
        Gmail et al. still add the headers if you send the message through an actual email client though, just not if you send it through the web client. And I'm guessing that the vast majority of email users still use email clients at least some of the time, given that they work much better on your phone and they're the easiest way for consumers to have a backup of their email.