BBC:
The use of “invisible” tracking tech in emails is now “endemic”, according to a messaging service that analysed its traffic at the BBC’s request.
Hey’s review indicated that two-thirds of emails sent to its users’ personal accounts contained a “spy pixel”, even after excluding for spam.
Its makers said that many of the largest brands used email pixels, with the exception of the “big tech” firms.
Defenders of the trackers say they are a commonplace marketing tactic.
And several of the companies involved noted their use of such tech was mentioned within their wider privacy policies.
Emails pixels can be used to log:
- if and when an email is opened
- how many times it is opened
- what device or devices are involved
- the user’s rough physical location, deduced from their internet protocol (IP) address – in some cases making it possible to see the street the recipient is on
Sounds really gay.
Yes.
I have been cheap for too long. Time to ante up and buy a private and reasonably secure Email service.
I pay for my reagan.com email. I learned about it at theconservativetreehouse.com which I highly respect and trust. I have had no problems with my email and it is not intrusive (as far as I know).
They pretty much know who and where we are already. The powers that be have been collecting data for years and storing it at the huge top security facility in Draper, Utah. When the Chinese take over we are pretty much doomed. Sorry to be so negative here but that’s where things are headed. Online petitions like the one posted on IOTW yesterday to censure Mitt Romney are created by the opposition to get specific addresses of patriots. The only security is to stay in the grace of God. Either give in and live a meager physical existence or resist and live in eternity.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/14/nsa-utah-data-facility
I just added a pixel to my website, although I haven’t started utilizing it. It’s just a data collection tool so I can target advertising more effectively. But it is certainly Big Brotherish – everything you do is tracked, whether for better ad targeting or for more sinister reasons.
Another reason why President Trump is smart not to use email and Hillary was the biggest f**king idiot to rver use email.
“I have been cheap for too long. Time to ante up and buy a private and reasonably secure Email service.”
Establish your own, it takes a little effort but inn’t all that hard to do. You don’t have to be a techno wizard type to do it at all.
Anything you’re letting someone else operate for you is under their control, not yours.
https://10minutemail.net/
I did an email list for a fruit company 20 years ago and I used an image load to track the ‘open rate’, or how many people actually opened the email vs. deleting without reading.
Que?
This sort of thing (while nefarious enough I suppose) has been around for a while a thought…? Is it a newer version of a trojan virus/spam email or what?
Years ago before the internet, I used to go to the court house and look up property records. I could see who bought property and how much they paid and many other details. The County Hall of Records was a great place to get all kinds of info. The internet has just made it easier for all of us to be private eyes.
Do you have an iphone? if so, go to “settings,” then “mail,” then scroll to “load remote images” and toggle that to “off.”
when an email arrives with an remote image, you will be prompted to load (or not). And, yes, a 1pixel x 1 pixel image is still an image. If you don’t automatically load the image, they won’t know you opened the email.
This has been going on forever. If you use internet-based graphical email, such as gmail, make sure your default settings are set to “no images”.
Psst: This “news” is 15 years old. Then again, they’ve yet to learn the dangers of behaving like the ancient city-states and empires.