Every commercial email sent via commercial mailing list services includes
web bugs. Spam often contains it, too, because it validates your email
address and renders it marginally more valuable to the spammer.
This is one of the reasons why email clients now block images as a matter of
course, allowing you to whitelist those you choose to trust.
A sender of bulk commercial email knows who has opened the mail AND seen the
graphic, but not those who have opened it and not seen the graphic
(suppressed download of images), because the bugs are usually tied in a
database to the recipient's email address or other unique identifier.
Some IT departments install corporate email clients with text as the
default, and others with HTML as the default. One assumes that they are
making correct choices. Mainly it is a matter of understanding the tools at
one's disposal and choosing which of them to use in which circumstances.
I forget where I saw the statistic, but there are figure that show that the
overwhelming majority of email sent and received is sent and received as
HTML. Note "Received". It is a feature of all good email clients that you
choose how you will receive emails as well as how you send them.
Generally an email sent in HTML is "also" sent in text. Your email client
settings determine which version you see. So, an email form me to you in
HTML will still be received as text only, provided your client options say
so. The reverse is not true. Text is not translated into HTML.
There is one area with text based emails that still allows tracking - that
of embedded links within the text. Whether you copy and paste these or
click them, depending in the manner of construction of the link it may still
identify you to the sender. Links in commercial bulk email are usually
constructed to identify who has clicked which link whether sent in text or
HTML.
-----Original Message-----
From: This list is for those interested in Data Protection issues
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Andrew Cormack
Sent: 24 November 2006 09:05
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [data-protection] reading e-mail in HTML (was: List management
things)
Since this is a Data Protection list, not a techie one: "if you read e-mail
in HTML format you may be releasing your personal data to the sender".
In DP terms it's up to each individual whether they think the benefits of
HTML formatting are worth that possible disclosure. If not, I'd suggest that
you set your e-mail client to display all messages in text format - you'll
be getting HTML formatted mail from all over the place, not just from this
list.
<slightly techie bit>
And it doesn't require much HTML technical ability on the part of the sender
- see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webbug
</slightly techie bit>
Andrew
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