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It doesn’t seem to me like a problem worth solving. What’s so bad about sending an email and trusting that the recipient will get around to it? Send a follow up
by ljm 7y ago
It doesn’t seem to me like a problem worth solving. What’s so bad about sending an email and trusting that the recipient will get around to it? Send a follow up email if you need to. Or use old-fashioned read receipts (which depend on the recipient to enable them).
Tech shouldn’t really be creepy by default, nor should it really establish needy/clingy behaviour, which is what I think non-consensual read tracking tends towards.
I mean, personally, I would consider it a significant invasion of my privacy if anyone who sent me an email knew when I opened it and, roughly, where, without me knowing.
The problem with the internet and tech companies now is that there is an established pattern of you being able to consent on behalf of other people purely by virtue of giving access to your contact list, or using a certain mail client. You are giving away their data, not your own.
- harryh 7y agoI pretty much agree with you. However, given that I'm extremely doubtful that SuperHuman will remove the feature completely, I'm going for what I consider a minimum standard of decency: disclosure and the ability for recipients to opt out.
- enraged_camel 7y agoMeh. I'll risk the downvotes and say that I fully support tracking pixels in emails. One of the reasons I use WhatsApp heavily is the read statuses. A single checkmark underneath the message means it was sent. Two checkmarks mean it was delivered. When the checkmarks turn blue, it means the recipient read the message. I love, love this feature. If I could wave a wand and instantaneously make it standard for ALL methods of communication, I would do it in a heartbeat.
- orangecat 7y agoConversely, I would gladly push a button to make such tracking technically impossible. The idea that sending me an unsolicited message entitles you to any information about my activity is absurd.
- enraged_camel 7y ago> The idea that sending me an unsolicited message entitles you to any information about my activity is absurd. What about for solicited messages? Just curious.
- ljm 7y agoI think read receipts solved this problem already. If you want someone to know when you open their messages, enable it. Disable it and they don’t find out. If you want to improve that setup, enable read receipts for a whitelist of contacts. People who you do want to notify when you open their message. I think a mistake was made when some messaging apps turned it into an opt-out and also made it punitive, in that opting out would mean that other people’s read receipts would be disabled. I don’t think it would be so bad if every single data point wasn’t hoovered up and sold to third parties. They’re probably using this read status feature to measure engagement and decide how to target more ads. They can infer a lot: who you respond to quickly, who you don’t... who is intimate and who is an acquaintance. Who is important, who isn’t.
- gnicholas 7y agoIf I want someone to know I've received their email, I can do so by replying. Also, I turn on read receipts for a few of my iMessage friends. I would consider doing the same for some of my email contacts if it were possible. But I don't like non-opt-in "features" like Messenger's activity indicator. It is no one's business when I was last on FB, or if I have accessed it via computer or mobile.