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The thing I hate the most about email is that they allow loading images as a third party resource, instead of requiring them to be sent with the rest of the mes
by surround 5y ago
The thing I hate the most about email is that they allow loading images as a third party resource, instead of requiring them to be sent with the rest of the message data. This allows companies and spammers to track when you open an email.
(They also track every link you click on, but that's a separate issue.)
- sethammons 5y agoImages can be base64 encoded into emails
- MereInterest 5y agoThey can be, but they aren't required to be. An email that contains all the resources to display itself doesn't leak user information. An email that contains a 1x1 tracking pixel, loaded when the receiver opens the email, lets the sender know that it has been received. In view of email spam, this is an unacceptable breach of privacy.
- jjav 5y agoConfigure your client to never load any external links unless you specifically select one for viewing.
- pantalaimon 5y agoThat's why some clients won't load images by default, only by request
- joshspankit 5y agoI was disappointed to see the Gmail app on the Pixel actually automatically loads images for emails in the spam folder, with no way to turn them off except to turn off image loading across the board.
- delta1 5y agoGmail already proxies images in emails to their own servers.
- sdfhbdf 5y agoBut they still only request them when the client views them and not beforehand, so the view tracking still works and even has the proper timestamp for that.
- louis-lau 5y agoThat still tells the spammer you opened the email. I also doubt they do so for third party email accounts, which can also be used in the gmail app.
- throwaway744678 5y agoI mean, don't open the messages in the spam folder?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- encryptluks2 5y agoSuprisingly legit emails sometimes still go to spam. I recently had an actual message from Google go into spam and I didn't put it there.
- swiley 5y agoI don't know if I've used a client that doesn't let you turn this off.
- kevincox 5y agoThe problem is that most clients are configured to allow it. So people send email that loads external resources. Now you need a degraded experience for privacy. If most clients disabled remote resources then senders would include them in the message.
- ddingus 5y agoWell, you do not have to allow images. I pretty much don't. Now and then I may allow one, depending.
- Fogest 5y agoDoesn't Gmail still proxy images so that this kind of tracking doesn't work? Or do they have a way around this?
- theamk 5y agoThey do, but they still load images on-demand the first time you open an email. So a spammer will know if and when you opened email; but they would not know your IP or user agent. The former is usually the most important part, and it is not blocked at all.
- Fogest 5y agoYeah that's a shame. I guess it would be too expensive for Google to load the images of every single email though it would kinda avoid this issue. But I can see why that isn't really a feasible option.
- throwawayboise 5y agoIt's also avoidable by just setting your email client to not load images by default. Not sure if gmail offers this, but I think it does.
- HWR_14 5y ago> I guess it would be too expensive for Google to load the images of every single email though it would kinda avoid this issue Would it really? I have no idea what the dollar cost of that would be. I can see not wanting to pay for a feature most people wouldn't use, but I certainly think Google could afford it. The biggest question would be what percent of pictures are loaded now and at what cost?
- jjav 5y ago> This allows companies and spammers to track when you open an email. "Email" doesn't allow that. If your email client does, that's a flaw in the client but clients are replaceable. I use mutt and no links are ever followed.
- selfhoster11 5y agoThe "clients" are de-facto Gmail and Outlook. Those two aren't going away anytime soon.
- mrunkel 5y agowell, good news! GMail proxies that img link. Also, Outlook by default doesn't load external images.
- city41 5y agoOthers in this thread have mentioned the proxying happens right when you open the email, so doesn't really protect you.
- tomjen3 5y agoOnly if you define them as such. I am quite happy with Thunderbird, which also allows me to read my RSS feeds.
- jjav 5y agoThey're not going away but you can pick something else, unlike with any proprietary system where the client is not a choice.
- twobitshifter 5y agoFor security it’s recommended to use plain text email only. Inlined images are nice, but most everything else in html mail is unneeded. Email is the number one threat vector for companies.