> Google also allows you to request a read receipt the responsible, official way that you're thinking of, but why would I ever use that feature when I can just

> Google also allows you to request a read receipt the responsible, official way that you're thinking of, but why would I ever use that feature when I can just give you a tracking pixel instead? The responsible read receipts require consent, and tracking pixels don't. Read receipts (as opposed to email tracking through images, let's not overload terms here) have the benefit that they might be returned by clients that don't load images by default. That's probably a relatively small portion of clients, but it is only one setting change away on Gmail. > Again, I haven't checked Gmail's default settings in... probably years. So maybe this has changed, and it doesn't load images by default anymore. But any client that loads images by default has non-consensual read receipts, and they should be shamed for that. A client that loads images by default does what 99% of people desire. That Gmail does so in a safer way than many others is a good thing, and maybe shame is a strong word for transparently making people's default behavior slightly safer while doing what they want (showing emails as they were visually intended and looking nice).