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Doesn't gmail's preloading defeat the read receipts? It makes it so every tracking pixel sent to gmail gets loaded (and not by your IP), thereby making it meani

by rgbrgb 5y ago

Doesn't gmail's preloading defeat the read receipts? It makes it so every tracking pixel sent to gmail gets loaded (and not by your IP), thereby making it meaningless.

dheera 5y ago
I thought gmail preloads only when the e-mail is opened. I thought it was basically just a proxy.
sp332 5y ago
This was true briefly in 2013. https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/12/gmail-blows-up-e-mail-marketing-by-caching-all-images-on-google-servers/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/12/gmail... But they got so much pushback they effectively disabled it. https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/12/dear-gmailer-i-know-what-you-read-last-summer-and-last-night-and-today/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/12/dear-... (It's still cached, but not in a privacy-preserving way.)
- anamexis 5y ago
  It's still more privacy-preserving than not preloading them at all, right? Whoever is serving the images doesn't get your IP addresses, cookies, etc. Not saying Google is virtuous here -- it only serves to enforce their advertising monopoly -- but I don't see how the image caching in itself is a bad thing.
  - sp332 5y ago
    Ok, that's probably true. Still works as a read receipt though.
    - graftak 5y ago
      Not if gmail always follows (image) links in emails, regardless of whether the recipient address belongs to anyone. Then it’s all noise.
      - account42 5y ago
        But they don't.
EMM_386 5y ago
> Doesn't gmail's preloading defeat the read receipts? It makes it so every tracking pixel sent to gmail gets loaded (and not by your IP), thereby making it meaningless. According to some articles I've read, the marketers can still name the images unique per user. So when Google's caches query for it, they still know it's you. I will keep "always load images" off as usual in Gmail. https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/12/dear-gmailer-i-know-what-you-read-last-summer-and-last-night-and-today/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/12/dear-...
- tgsovlerkhgsel 5y ago
  If Google fetches the images when the mail is delivered (not when it is opened), all the sender learns is that the mail arrived (but not whether the user actually looked at it). I'm not sure if that's the case though.

by rgbrgb 5y ago

Doesn't gmail's preloading defeat the read receipts? It makes it so every tracking pixel sent to gmail gets loaded (and not by your IP), thereby making it meaningless.

dheera 5y ago

I thought gmail preloads only when the e-mail is opened. I thought it was basically just a proxy.

sp332 5y ago

This was true briefly in 2013. https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/12/gmail-blows-up-e-mail-marketing-by-caching-all-images-on-google-servers/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/12/gmail... But they got so much pushback they effectively disabled it. https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/12/dear-gmailer-i-know-what-you-read-last-summer-and-last-night-and-today/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/12/dear-... (It's still cached, but not in a privacy-preserving way.)

anamexis 5y ago
It's still more privacy-preserving than not preloading them at all, right? Whoever is serving the images doesn't get your IP addresses, cookies, etc. Not saying Google is virtuous here -- it only serves to enforce their advertising monopoly -- but I don't see how the image caching in itself is a bad thing.
- sp332 5y ago
  Ok, that's probably true. Still works as a read receipt though.
  - graftak 5y ago
    Not if gmail always follows (image) links in emails, regardless of whether the recipient address belongs to anyone. Then it’s all noise.
    - account42 5y ago
      But they don't.

EMM_386 5y ago

> Doesn't gmail's preloading defeat the read receipts? It makes it so every tracking pixel sent to gmail gets loaded (and not by your IP), thereby making it meaningless. According to some articles I've read, the marketers can still name the images unique per user. So when Google's caches query for it, they still know it's you. I will keep "always load images" off as usual in Gmail. https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/12/dear-gmailer-i-know-what-you-read-last-summer-and-last-night-and-today/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/12/dear-...

tgsovlerkhgsel 5y ago
If Google fetches the images when the mail is delivered (not when it is opened), all the sender learns is that the mail arrived (but not whether the user actually looked at it). I'm not sure if that's the case though.