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Yeah no. 100% no. All this screams to me is that google has way too much power in email to be able to implement something like this. On the one hand we have s

Yeah no. 100% no. All this screams to me is that google has way too much power in email to be able to implement something like this. On the one hand we have some companies trying to block things like tracker pixels and other static images for tracking purposes. Then we have google saying "lets make emails dynamic" and just making it easier to track. I hope no other email provider adds support for this. Email needs to remain static and platform agnostic.

kotaKat 4y ago
I wonder how this impacts legal discovery when your dynamic emails get rid of all the evidence that was ever emailed to a recipient.
- Avamander 4y ago
  To be fair a lot of emails aren't very strong evidence anyways. A lot of vendors still don't DKIM-sign their mail, S/MIME is basically nonexistent, so it's not too difficult to forge a letter.
  - torstenvl 4y ago
    Beyond a reasonable doubt does not mean beyond any hypothetical, fanciful, or possible doubt. I think you'd have a hard time providing a jury with a reason to believe a particular e-mail was forged, particularly if there is other corroborating evidence. And that only applies in criminal proceedings - under a preponderance standard you'd have even more of an uphill battle.
  - PenguinCoder 4y ago
    It's a lot easier for a single entity (ME) rather than a Corporation to get all this set right, I suppose. My personal domain email has DKIM,SPF,DMARC, and I send all my emails S/MIME signed at the least. Where I run into issues with this is for automatic/service account emails, like for monitoring alerts and the like. Either have to save the PW with the S/MIME cert command somehow, or just not S/MIME sign at all for service accounts.
ilammy 4y ago
> On the one hand we have some companies trying to block things like tracker pixels and other static images for tracking purposes. Speaking of which, when you access Gmail via IMAP, Google replaces every URL in HTML email with a tracking link, having you go through their servers first before being redirected to where you actually want to go.
- galdor 4y ago
  I just checked for the two Gmail Workspace accounts I am reading using IMAP, and in both cases links are not altered. Does this replacement occurs for free Gmail accounts ?
  - krastanov 4y ago
    Just checked my private one. No, nothing like that happens.
    - tpxl 4y ago
      This definitely sometimes happens and sometimes not, but I'm not sure when. I remember this happening recently on my private email (that I can't access atm), but I can't find any examples in my work email.
- jgalt212 4y ago
  Yes, this has been a concern, but so far we have only witnessed the link rewriting for clients using the gmail web application, not IMAP access. I'm counting on Google Workspace customers much larger than me to keep gmail in line.
- alias_neo 4y ago
  I've noticed that almost all links in emails I receive in Gmail for Android, redirect through a Google link first. I just checked and though click-and-hold shows the real link, if I tap to open, it actually opens "https://www.google.com/url?q=<original https://www.google.com/url?q=<original link>" in my browser. EDIT: This happens for both Workspace and normal "free" accounts.
_fat_santa 4y ago
I could find this useful with some types of transactional emails. I'm currently working on an app where a user submits their timesheet and an email is sent to a manager to approve the time. Right now the manager has to click "Review Time" in the email where they will then be kicked out to a portal I setup that lets them review the entries. With something like AMP I could embed all that logic in the actual email, letting the manager submit a review without having to leave that email. The problem with all of this is none of it will work because of platform support. Like you said support for AMP Emails is limited to Gmail and maybe a handful of other clients. Part of me wishes that AMP Emails were an actual standard rather than a "standard" that google created to help itself. And with only Gmail really having support, you know this will only ever get used in marketing shenanigans and to more deeply track you.
- dingleberry420 4y ago
  Oh no, the user has to press a button. Let's completely destroy privacy and complicate EVERYTHING just to save them that one click. Worth it.
  - czstar 4y ago
    Humans prefer to have barriers to completing a task removed. No clicks is much better than one click and privacy is almost completely dead. Privacy will slowly die unless there are major changes legally and culturally. It’s worthy to fight against the loss of privacy. I think it will be a losing fight though.
    - bcrl 4y ago
      Meanwhile, let's make it impossible to click on a button to obtain support from Google when you need it (and are willing to pay for it).
  - _fat_santa 4y ago
    Yeah but the same argument could be made for the web. Why build a react app that complicates everything instead of just a plain HTML site. The simple answer is use cases, if you're delivering a simple email with a notification then no you do not need something like this, but some will have a case where they do need to reach for something like this. It's no different than web or mobile development. If we shunned every piece of tech that had potentially nefarious uses cases then we would still be stuck in the stone age.
JohnFen 4y ago
I think that the entire concept of dynamic emails is misguided and eliminates a few of the strengths of email. I already make sure to never allow my mailreader to render HTML or resolve links anyway, though, for security reasons. So I guess this won't affect me any.
- jraph 4y ago
  > So I guess this won't affect me any Unless something mandatory or highly desirable comes to depend on it. This is what needs to not happen. A bit like banks on smartphones.
  - JohnFen 4y ago
    True. But I can't imagine what the would be, honestly. I get along fine without using my smartphone for anything of importance -- especially banking -- even though I'm constantly told that's not possible.
    - jraph 4y ago
      I don't know. Companies can get annoyingly creative with this kind of stuff. About banks and smartphones, it's a tangent but by chance my bank haven't managed to force us to have a smartphone to deal with it so far. They are trying hard though. For months they have been displaying on web transactions that paying on the web would require the app in a few weeks. Now they just say passive-agressively that it would have been easier with the app because I would not have to type the second code we have to enter without it (except I actually saw how it works with the app and it's not even much more convenient). I guess we are enough users to have not installed the app. And indeed, at this point nothing in my life requires a smartphone. It's merely convenient for directions and for showing QR Codes to whatever machine which wants to see some in transport networks.

kotaKat 4y ago

I wonder how this impacts legal discovery when your dynamic emails get rid of all the evidence that was ever emailed to a recipient.

Avamander 4y ago
To be fair a lot of emails aren't very strong evidence anyways. A lot of vendors still don't DKIM-sign their mail, S/MIME is basically nonexistent, so it's not too difficult to forge a letter.
- torstenvl 4y ago
  Beyond a reasonable doubt does not mean beyond any hypothetical, fanciful, or possible doubt. I think you'd have a hard time providing a jury with a reason to believe a particular e-mail was forged, particularly if there is other corroborating evidence. And that only applies in criminal proceedings - under a preponderance standard you'd have even more of an uphill battle.
- PenguinCoder 4y ago
  It's a lot easier for a single entity (ME) rather than a Corporation to get all this set right, I suppose. My personal domain email has DKIM,SPF,DMARC, and I send all my emails S/MIME signed at the least. Where I run into issues with this is for automatic/service account emails, like for monitoring alerts and the like. Either have to save the PW with the S/MIME cert command somehow, or just not S/MIME sign at all for service accounts.

ilammy 4y ago

> On the one hand we have some companies trying to block things like tracker pixels and other static images for tracking purposes. Speaking of which, when you access Gmail via IMAP, Google replaces every URL in HTML email with a tracking link, having you go through their servers first before being redirected to where you actually want to go.

galdor 4y ago
I just checked for the two Gmail Workspace accounts I am reading using IMAP, and in both cases links are not altered. Does this replacement occurs for free Gmail accounts ?
- krastanov 4y ago
  Just checked my private one. No, nothing like that happens.
  - tpxl 4y ago
    This definitely sometimes happens and sometimes not, but I'm not sure when. I remember this happening recently on my private email (that I can't access atm), but I can't find any examples in my work email.
jgalt212 4y ago
Yes, this has been a concern, but so far we have only witnessed the link rewriting for clients using the gmail web application, not IMAP access. I'm counting on Google Workspace customers much larger than me to keep gmail in line.
alias_neo 4y ago
I've noticed that almost all links in emails I receive in Gmail for Android, redirect through a Google link first. I just checked and though click-and-hold shows the real link, if I tap to open, it actually opens "https://www.google.com/url?q=<original https://www.google.com/url?q=<original link>" in my browser. EDIT: This happens for both Workspace and normal "free" accounts.

_fat_santa 4y ago

I could find this useful with some types of transactional emails. I'm currently working on an app where a user submits their timesheet and an email is sent to a manager to approve the time. Right now the manager has to click "Review Time" in the email where they will then be kicked out to a portal I setup that lets them review the entries. With something like AMP I could embed all that logic in the actual email, letting the manager submit a review without having to leave that email. The problem with all of this is none of it will work because of platform support. Like you said support for AMP Emails is limited to Gmail and maybe a handful of other clients. Part of me wishes that AMP Emails were an actual standard rather than a "standard" that google created to help itself. And with only Gmail really having support, you know this will only ever get used in marketing shenanigans and to more deeply track you.

dingleberry420 4y ago
Oh no, the user has to press a button. Let's completely destroy privacy and complicate EVERYTHING just to save them that one click. Worth it.
- czstar 4y ago
  Humans prefer to have barriers to completing a task removed. No clicks is much better than one click and privacy is almost completely dead. Privacy will slowly die unless there are major changes legally and culturally. It’s worthy to fight against the loss of privacy. I think it will be a losing fight though.
  - bcrl 4y ago
    Meanwhile, let's make it impossible to click on a button to obtain support from Google when you need it (and are willing to pay for it).
- _fat_santa 4y ago
  Yeah but the same argument could be made for the web. Why build a react app that complicates everything instead of just a plain HTML site. The simple answer is use cases, if you're delivering a simple email with a notification then no you do not need something like this, but some will have a case where they do need to reach for something like this. It's no different than web or mobile development. If we shunned every piece of tech that had potentially nefarious uses cases then we would still be stuck in the stone age.

JohnFen 4y ago

I think that the entire concept of dynamic emails is misguided and eliminates a few of the strengths of email. I already make sure to never allow my mailreader to render HTML or resolve links anyway, though, for security reasons. So I guess this won't affect me any.

jraph 4y ago
> So I guess this won't affect me any Unless something mandatory or highly desirable comes to depend on it. This is what needs to not happen. A bit like banks on smartphones.
- JohnFen 4y ago
  True. But I can't imagine what the would be, honestly. I get along fine without using my smartphone for anything of importance -- especially banking -- even though I'm constantly told that's not possible.
  - jraph 4y ago
    I don't know. Companies can get annoyingly creative with this kind of stuff. About banks and smartphones, it's a tangent but by chance my bank haven't managed to force us to have a smartphone to deal with it so far. They are trying hard though. For months they have been displaying on web transactions that paying on the web would require the app in a few weeks. Now they just say passive-agressively that it would have been easier with the app because I would not have to type the second code we have to enter without it (except I actually saw how it works with the app and it's not even much more convenient). I guess we are enough users to have not installed the app. And indeed, at this point nothing in my life requires a smartphone. It's merely convenient for directions and for showing QR Codes to whatever machine which wants to see some in transport networks.