What is email tracking and why should you turn it off?
- Online threats
Overview
Do you know that when you send or receive an email, someone may be secretly monitoring your behavior? Email tracking is a common technique that allows the sender or a third party to know when you open an email, as well as your other information, such as your location, device type and browser. This may sound scary, but you can take some measures to protect your privacy. This article will introduce the principle, risk and solution of email tracking.
Contents
What are the risks of email tracking?
How to prevent email tracking?
How does email tracking work?
The principle of email tracking is simple: the sender or a third party embeds an invisible image or pixel in the email, which loads from a remote server when you open the email, sending a signal to the tracker . This signal can contain some information about you, such as the time, place, device and browser you used to open the email. Some email tracking tools can even tell the tracker if you clicked on any links or attachments in the email, and how long you stayed in the email.
What are the risks of email tracking?
Email tracking may violate your privacy and security . If you don’t want the sender to know if you read their email, or if you want to reply at your own time, then email tracking will make you feel pressured and uncomfortable. If you receive a spam or phishing email and accidentally open it, then email tracking will let the scammer know that you are a potential target and may continue to harass or attack you. If you receive an email involving sensitive or confidential information and unknowingly expose your location or device, then email tracking will give snoops or hackers an opportunity to track or invade you.
How to prevent email tracking?
Fortunately, there are some ways to help you stop or reduce email tracking.
① Turn off the image loading function in your email client or browser
This way, when you open an email with a tracking image or pixel, they will not load and will not send a signal to the tracker. But this method also has a drawback: it will affect your experience of viewing other normal images or charts.
② Use VPN
Use VPN to hide or change your real IP address so that even if the image or pixel is loaded, it cannot accurately locate your location1. VPN can also encrypt your network traffic, making it harder to intercept or steal.
Why choose MetroVPN?
If you want to use VPN to protect yourself from email tracking, then we recommend you use MetroVPN . MetroVPN is a fast, secure, reliable and easy-to-use VPN service that lets you enjoy network freedom and privacy on any place, any device. MetroVPN has the following advantages:
① Global servers
It has over 6500 servers worldwide, allowing you to access any website or app anytime, anywhere, regardless of whether they are blocked or restricted.
② Encrypts network activity
It encrypts all user network activity, ensuring that user behavior is not obtained by others.
③ Strict no-logs policy
It has a strict no-logs policy, meaning that it does not record or store any of your network activity, nor does it share your information with any third party.
④ 24/7 support
It has a friendly customer support team that can provide you with help and guidance 24/7, no matter what problems or questions you encounter.
