Everyone sends emails now: political parties, your book club, freelance journalists, the social networks you signed up with, your parents, that online store where you bought just one item from ten years ago, and much, much more.
What do many of those email senders have in common? They want to know if the messages they send you are opening, and there are several tools available to help them do that – tools that aren’t that difficult to use.
A tracking pixel embedded somewhere in the email is how most people check if an email is opened. Once the small, hidden one pixel image loads, it reports back to basics. According to some experts, its use via e-mails has now reached “endemic” levels.
Tracking Pixels can report the times and dates their associated email was opened, as well as the location of the device used and the affected email client. That’s a lot of data to send back to a third party that you may not know much about.
Marketers and newsletter writers would say that this type of tracking is essential for their audience to understand and understand what they are most interested in, and to understand the kind of returns they are getting on their advertising dollars, but then again it can feel as an invasion of privacy by essentially floating an eye over your shoulder and making a note every time you open and read a specific email, especially if you don’t know it’s happening.
There may not be much you can do about using these tracking pixels, but you can take steps to keep them from working and see what posts they are in so you know which people and which companies are particularly interested in you. , and you can choose who to allow or disallow.
Stop tracking emails
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Blocking images in an email client blocks tracking pixels.
(Outlook Mail via David Nield)
Emails are usually tracked using the pixel method we’ve mentioned, so the easiest way to stop this is to prevent images from loading in your email application of choice by default. Your posts may look less visually appealing, but it’s a tradeoff worth it if you want that level of control.
In Gmail on the web, click the gear icon (top right), then click View all settings and General: next Pictures, select Ask before viewing external imagesIn Mail on macOS, choose Mail Preferences See and uncheck Load external content into messagesIn the Outlook Mail program that comes with Windows 10, tap the gear icon at the bottom of the navigation pane and choose Reading pane and make sure both Automatically download external images options are disabled.
You can find similar settings on your phone. In Gmail for Android or iOS, tap the menu button (top left), then tap Settings, then your email account and PicturesFor Mail on iOS, open the main Settings app and choose Mail and switch it on Load external images option. In Outlook for Android and iOS, tap your profile picture (top left), then the gear icon, then your email account. Then you can use the Block external images option.
Email apps other than the ones we’ve mentioned usually have similar options that you can take advantage of. It is still possible to view images in emails in these apps, you just need extra tap or click to do it. If images are not loaded, embedded tracking pixels will not open and will not be notified that they have been opened.
Spotting tracking emails
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