Email Bugs Are Tracking You

Do you want to know exactly when a friend or colleague opens your email? How about where they are when they do?

Free services now allow us to do a little spying through the email we send. But it's raising some questions about privacy.

A growing number of people are using this technology. One More Company OMC, a company that makes software to detect this kind of email bugging, released a report last year. It says marketers put bugs in virtually all of the email they send.

But surprisingly, last year 16 percent of all conversational email-- the messages you send to friends, family and colleagues-- was also tracked. And that's up from 10 percent the year before. video more

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Counter Measures for Users
Possible measures to restrict the functioning of tracking pixels:

• Set browser and email settings to be as restrictive as possible such that external graphics are only supported after permission, and HTML emails are not supported. Appropriate firewall settings can also be used to do this.
• Some browser extensions can be used to make tracking pixels visible.
• Anonymous surfing with the Tor Browser or use of proxy servers to prevent the download of tracking pixels.
• In order to prevent the collection of additional user data such as browser type or operating system, the support of scripts in the browser can be deactivated. This can however restrict other functions on the Internet under certain circumstances. more