Be always aware that senders of email can very well snoop around to find information on your mail behaviour patterns.
Recently a friend told me appreciatively that I read and replied to emails swiftly. I was not sure whether it was a sign of my efficiency or over-dependency on the gadget world. But suddenly it struck me, how did he know I read most mails immediately. And that was my introduction to the world of email trackers.
Email tracker is a third-party software that anyone can download and install for free. For certain additional features one has to pay a fee but the basic version is free. A person who sends mail using this software can track the time and date at which the mail was viewed, the number of times it was viewed, the IP address of the device on which it was viewed, whether it has been forwarded to a third person, and so on.
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At first look it seems like a handy tool. We all have been in situations where we wondered whether the important mail we sent to the Boss or Professor was read or not. And where there is demand, there is an entrepreneur willing to capitalise on it. The tracking software embeds a small, invisible image in the sent mail, and when the receiver opens the mail, it is detected and this data is received by the software to inform the sender.
Some people are, expectedly, unhappy with this snooping around. And now there exists counter-software to detect if the person sending you the mail is tracking your activity. This software prevents embedded images from being opened.
One might wonder whether it matters at all. How important is privacy?
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In the United States, a certain tracking scandal associated with an IT company in 2006 shed light on ethical issues involved in such tracking. The company’s investigators acknowledged they used technology to trick a journalist into revealing her sources for certain stories that contained confidential information about the company. They said the company continued to use such software.
That company is not alone. Most companies send email advertisements that contain pictures in some form and they can track the mails you read and the ones you don’t. Such data are critical for advertising and marketing companies. They have enough information on the products you like and dislike. This means they can continue to inundate your email with advertisements more suited to your tastes rather than the iPhone X you can’t afford.
One would expect mail servers to change their settings in some way to protect the privacy of their users. But since they get their revenues from advertising, they hardly have any incentive to make it difficult for advertisers to glean more data.
WhatsApp, the popular messaging service, has an added privacy feature where one cannot disallow read receipts. This keeps the “blue ticks” at bay. And one has the luxury to reply to messages at their convenience.
There is very little awareness around the issue of mail tracking. With data consumption increasing exponentially in the past year itself, India is poised for a digital revolution. The nuances of using basic services such as email need to be understood, especially by professionals in the work space. Cyber-attacks are on the rise and developing countries are at the greatest risk since scant attention is being paid to issues of privacy and safety. So what you can do to stop being tracked? Change your settings and stop loading remote content on your mail. It will make your in box a bit drab without all the pictures. This will stop most trackers but not the highly advanced ones. You can also download additional software for the purpose.
The bottomline: awareness is key when you use any online service. Even the most “harmless” ones such as email.
padhi.debasmita20@gmail.com