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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/ h

by 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.