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font-size: medium;" cite="mid:502E102D.9050305@gmail.com" type="cite"><!--[if !IE]><DIV style="border-left: 2px solid #999999; border-right: 2px solid #999999; padding: 0px 15px; margin: 2px 0px;"><![endif]--><span style="color:#000000; font-family:Arial Black;
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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 8/17/2012 5:34 AM, Axel
wrote:<br>
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<blockquote style="border:none !important; padding-left:0px
!important; padding-right:0px !important; margin-left:0px
!important; margin-right:0px !important" cite="mid:502D8BB4.9060302@gmail.com" type="cite"><!--[if !IE]><DIV style="border-left: 2px solid #999999; border-right: 2px solid #999999; padding: 0px 15px; margin: 2px 0px;"><![endif]-->Not
just 1x1 size, just received a payment verification Email
with the following:<img width="0" height="0" src="<a moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://mandrillapp.com/track/click.php?u=11000867&id=0277340f88ae4a20941a4385f443d4e0&url=http%3Ablah%2FEmailTracking.serv%3Ftransaction&url_id=202712961&tags=252069,252073">http:blah/EmailTracking.serv?transaction</a>
number. <br>
One wonders why a multi-billion dollar company would want to
know that I read that mail.(Remote content blocked BTW) <br>
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because they are a multi-billion dollar company? Of course the
honest way would by prompting for a "read" receipt, but that
would be regarded as a nuisance by many users.<br>
<br>
I think the tracking aspect of verification aspects of that <i>might
</i>be considered useful by companies like paypal etc. were it
not so unreliable...<br>
<br>
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Because knowledge is power, and when the user knowingly chooses
to load remote images[which they know can be tracked] it
provides important information for all aspects of business:<br>
<br>
Do our payment receipts get read or are we wasting internet
bandwidth sending them?<br>
For a "free" newsletter, supported by advertising, with 1
million subscribers, is it actually read by 1 million people?
Advertisers want to know these things, and the time it takes for
people to write the newsletter is generally not "free" - so
someone pays for it.<br>
For a non-profit newsletter, is the 100$/month they spend to
send those newsletters generating 100+/month in donations or are
they wasting their time?<br>
Is the newsletter read once, or does the receiver read it over
and over again?<br>
What email clients are being used to read your email? Good to
know so you can determine if you can upgrade to HTML5 and CSS,
or if you need to stick with tables for layout.<br>
<br>
It's somewhat interesting that "nefarious" is based on which
side of the table your looking at. Google, for example, feels
it is nefarious to charge advertisers millions of dollars for
ads, and not provide them with every scrap of information on how
well the ad is doing. Traditional Media companies think it is
nefarious to provide lots of information, and advertisers should
pay millions for ads and just hope they work. Recipients of
advertising tend to think it is nefarious for them to see
advertising along with "free" content - yet they also think it
is nefarious to pay for content. Spammers think it is
"nefarious" for people to block their messages from their inbox
and not read them.<br>
<br>
Privacy is another matter... <br>
<br>
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