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April 17, 2007
Mail | Turn off web bugs
Did you know your email is bugged?
Email marketing messages typically include web bugs, which are normally small, invisible images with a tracking number in the file name. They are typically used to track when, and how often you view each message.
This isn't really a big deal, except that spammers also use web bugs. Thus, when you view a spam message - often simply by selecting it so that you can mark it as junk - you send a signal back to the sender as if to say, "Thank you very much for the spam. Please send more!" And that's probably not a signal you want to send.
How to turn off web bugs
- Open mail > Preferences > Viewing, and uncheck the box beside "Display remote images in HTML messages"
- Close the Preferences window.
Email messages with images will now display a "Load Images" button - for the one's you do want to view.
Find out more about web bugs on Wikipedia.
Posted by Brad at April 17, 2007 11:59 AM
