Everyone sends emails now: political parties, your book club, freelance journalists, the social networks you sign up for, your parents, that online store where you just bought one item from a decade ago, and much, much more.
What do many of the email senders have in common? They want to know if the messages they send you are being opened, and there are a variety of tools available to help them do that – tools that are not that difficult to use.
A tracking pixel, somewhere in the email, is the way most people monitor or open an email. Once the small, hidden image of a single pixel is loaded, report it back to base. Its use in emails, according to some experts, is now at an ‘endemic’ level.
Tracking pixels can report the times and dates their associated email was opened, as well as the location of the device used and the email client in question. This is a lot of data to trace back to a third party that you may not know much about.
Marketers and newsletter writers would say that this kind of tracking is essential to understanding their audience and what they are most interested in reading about – as well as the kind of revenue they get on their advertising dollars – but on the other hand it can ‘ be a violation of privacy to keep an eye on your shoulder that records every time you open and read a specific email, especially if you do not know it is happening.
You may not be able to do much about using these tracking pixels, but you can take steps to prevent them from working, and to see what messages they include – so that you know which people and which companies are particularly interested in you, and you can choose who to allow and who not.
Stop tracking emails
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Blocking images in an email client blocks the tracking of pixels.
(Outlook Mail via David Nield)
Emails are usually detected according to the pixel method we mentioned, so the easiest way to stop them is to prevent images from loading by default in your email application. Your messages may seem less appealing, but they are worth making if you want some control.
Then click on Gmail on the gear icon (top right) See all settings and General: along Images, choose Ask before displaying external images. Choose in Mail on macOS Mail, Preferences, Viewing and unmark Load remote content into messages. In the Outlook Mail program in Windows 10, tap the gear icon at the bottom of the navigation pane, then select Reading window and make sure both Automatically download external images options are disabled.
You can find similar settings on your phone. Then tap on the menu button in Gmail for Android or iOS (top left) Institutions, then your email account and Images. Open the main Settings app for Mail on iOS and select Mail and switch the Upload remote images option. In Outlook for Android and iOS, tap on your profile photo (top left), then on the gear icon and then on your email account – then you can Block external images option.
Other email programs besides the ones we mentioned usually have similar options that you can use. It is still possible to see images within emails in these applications, it just needs an extra tap or click to do so. If images are not loaded, no built-in caps will be obtained and it will not be reported that they have been opened.
Detect tracking email
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