5 ms·

"In some cases, senders may be able to know whether an individual has opened a message with unique image links" https://support.google.com/mail/answer/145919?p

by mapgrep 13y ago

"In some cases, senders may be able to know whether an individual has opened a message with unique image links" https://support.google.com/mail/answer/145919?p=display_images&rd=1 https://support.google.com/mail/answer/145919?p=display_imag... This is an inherent flaw with auto-displayed mail images loaded on demand. They are easily rigged to act as read receipts. Hard to see how that's a privacy enhancement.

anonsumus 13y ago
Well, you have the option to turn it off. They could also be serving the images cached which wouldn't indicate anything to the sender, and they are just adding this caveat to be extra cautions. Not to mention that marketing stuff has its specific tab in gmail.
- ryanthejuggler 13y ago
  Tracking images in emails are uncacheable specifically because they need to be traceable. For a set of users, you'd send out the same email, but use a different image for each: www.example.com/banner.png?userid=1 www.example.com/banner.png?userid=2 www.example.com/banner.png?userid=3 and so on. How would you propose caching that? You can't simply ignore the GET parameters since many web services use those to distinguish between different files. And anyways you could even get around that by using URLs like www.example.com/userid/1/banner.png www.example.com/userid/2/banner.png www.example.com/userid/3/banner.png While I do applaud the decision to route all images through Google servers to hide the user's location, I'm disappointed that images are enabled by default.
  - TheCraiggers 13y ago
    >While I do applaud the decision to route all images through Google servers to hide the user's location, I'm disappointed that images are enabled by default. It is a usability feature. I can attest that my own mother has no idea why the pictures in her emails don't show up. If this keeps her privacy (or at least what shreds of it remain) and makes it easier, then I don't have a problem with it. Personally, spam is a thing of the past. Between using multiple email addresses that forward to a few main ones, to spam assassin and Gmail's spam filtering, I haven't seen a spam in years. Even if I did, I highly doubt it would get me to open it. That leaves promotional emails, which, if I'm opening, I already have an interest in and might as well just see the images. It saves me a click. Rare would be the case where I'm interested in an email enough to open it, but not enough to see the images it contains (which often make reading it a more pleasant experience in the case of headers, gradients, and the like).
  - toomuchtodo 13y ago
    Get hash of image file, serve cached version of fetched version if hash matches.
    - ryanthejuggler 13y ago
      The point isn't that the image be shown in the browser, it's that it is requested from the email sender's server. That's how email tracking works. If you're still making the request then this approach doesn't work. (Unless I'm missing something?)

by mapgrep 13y ago

anonsumus 13y ago

Well, you have the option to turn it off. They could also be serving the images cached which wouldn't indicate anything to the sender, and they are just adding this caveat to be extra cautions. Not to mention that marketing stuff has its specific tab in gmail.

ryanthejuggler 13y ago
Tracking images in emails are uncacheable specifically because they need to be traceable. For a set of users, you'd send out the same email, but use a different image for each: www.example.com/banner.png?userid=1 www.example.com/banner.png?userid=2 www.example.com/banner.png?userid=3 and so on. How would you propose caching that? You can't simply ignore the GET parameters since many web services use those to distinguish between different files. And anyways you could even get around that by using URLs like www.example.com/userid/1/banner.png www.example.com/userid/2/banner.png www.example.com/userid/3/banner.png While I do applaud the decision to route all images through Google servers to hide the user's location, I'm disappointed that images are enabled by default.
- TheCraiggers 13y ago
  >While I do applaud the decision to route all images through Google servers to hide the user's location, I'm disappointed that images are enabled by default. It is a usability feature. I can attest that my own mother has no idea why the pictures in her emails don't show up. If this keeps her privacy (or at least what shreds of it remain) and makes it easier, then I don't have a problem with it. Personally, spam is a thing of the past. Between using multiple email addresses that forward to a few main ones, to spam assassin and Gmail's spam filtering, I haven't seen a spam in years. Even if I did, I highly doubt it would get me to open it. That leaves promotional emails, which, if I'm opening, I already have an interest in and might as well just see the images. It saves me a click. Rare would be the case where I'm interested in an email enough to open it, but not enough to see the images it contains (which often make reading it a more pleasant experience in the case of headers, gradients, and the like).
- toomuchtodo 13y ago
  Get hash of image file, serve cached version of fetched version if hash matches.
  - ryanthejuggler 13y ago
    The point isn't that the image be shown in the browser, it's that it is requested from the email sender's server. That's how email tracking works. If you're still making the request then this approach doesn't work. (Unless I'm missing something?)