All of us are besieged with solicitations in our mailboxes. Many times our addressed and picked up by tracking engines. The article below should provide some reduction in reducing these.
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Ways to Avoid Email Tracking
By KATE MURPHY DEC.
25, 2014 NY Times
By now you
probably know that browsing the web leaves you open to tracking by Internet
service providers, website operators and advertisers. But less well known is
that you can be tracked simply by opening an email. Merely clicking or tapping
to open a message can transmit to the sender not only that you opened it, but
also where you were when you did so and on what device, among other things.
The technology
has been used by email marketers and Nigerian fraudsters for more than a
decade. But more recently, it has become a tool used by employers, sales people,
bill collectors, lawyers, political candidates, nonprofit fund-raisers and
maybe also that guy you met at a bar and regrettably gave your contact
information to.
Here’s how it
works: The sender of the email embeds a so-called web bug or pixel tracker into
the content of the message or possibly inside an attached PDF, Word or
PowerPoint. These bugs are 1-by-1 pixel images (tinier than tiny), which are
invisible to the recipient. When the email or document is opened, the bug
triggers your device to contact the sender’s server and convey all sorts of
information.
“What it does
is lure you into an online environment and the collection that goes on there
without alerting you that it’s happening,” said Ryan Calo, a professor of law
at the University of Washington Law School in Seattle who specializes in
privacy issues.
There are some
things you can do to avoid having your email activity monitored. Perhaps the
easiest defense is to adjust the settings of your email program so there is no
image rendering.
It used to be
set that way by default but last year, in a boon to marketers, Gmail made the
setting an opt-out feature and many other email providers followed suit.
Disabling images will sift and block images from incoming emails, including
those tiny, pixel-size tracking bugs. You can click on the missing images you
want to see and which ones you don’t.
“A more
advanced technique is to construct a personal firewall that blocks images,”
said Gerald Friedland, director of audio and multimedia research at the International
Computer Science Institute at the University of California, Berkeley.
Or, he said,
you could simply turn off your Wi-Fi while opening and reading email messages.
This, of course, assumes you aren’t checking your email on your provider’s
website but rather using a retrieval program like Apple Mail or Outlook.
And don’t click
on any attachment while connected, nor a link within the message, even if it’s
the unsubscribe button. “The unsubscribe link is the most clicked item in
emails so it’s often what they use to track you,” said H.D. Moore, a senior
researcher with the Internet security consultant Rapid7. “As soon as you click
on it, they know everything about you.”
Besides when,
where and on what device you opened the message, an email sender can also tell
how long you looked at the message and if you opened other windows while you
had the message displayed. Also transmitted is if you saved, forwarded or
deleted the message, how many times you subsequently opened the message plus
various details about your device’s operating system and settings.
Analysis of
this kind of tracking data is a standard service offered by bulk email
providers like Constant Contact, MailChimp or HubSpot.
These companies facilitate sending emails to large mailing lists and generate
tracking reports so their customers can assess how well their messages are
received.
“If a business
learns what email content resonates, then you’ll get better content,” said Gail
Goodman, the chief executive of Constant Contact.
Indeed, email
marketing services argue that the tracking actually helps recipients because
senders use the data to craft more relevant messages as well as to determine
the best viewing format and delivery time.
Sales people
who track emails through services like Yesware and Tout-App say the practice
allows them to call customers soon after they have opened messages, while the
pitch is still fresh. Or perhaps they can conveniently bump into customers at
Starbucks or drop by their office, where the sales person knows the customer
just opened an email.
Within the last
couple of years, mobile apps like Bananatag
and MailTracker have made
email tracking available to just about anyone. Email tracking apps and services,
whether intended for professional or personal use, can cost up to $35 a month
depending on the number of emails users want tracked and the detail of the
tracking data.
The legality of
the practice is unclear. Email trackers argue it is the same data you give away
when you visit a website with cookies. Opponents say it is a matter of
expectation and consent. Websites are legally required to have a privacy policy
that visitors can read to understand what data is being collected.
“People don’t
have that same understanding when they open an email,” said Professor Calo at
the University of Washington.
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In addition to this blog, I maintain a radio show on BlogtalkRadio and an online newsletter via paper.li.I have established Netiquette discussion groups with Linkedin and Yahoo. I am also a
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contributing to the blogs Everything Email and emailmonday . My work has appeared in numerous publications and I have presented to groups such as The Breakfast Club of NJ and PSG of Mercer County, NJ.
I am the president of Tabula Rosa Systems,
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Over the past twenty-five years, I have enjoyed a dynamic and successful career and have attained an extensive background in IT and electronic communications by selling and marketing within the information technology marketplace.Anyone who would like to review the book and have it posted on my blog or website, please contact me paul@netiquetteiq.com.
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