The Internet is expanding, and almost daily we experience something out of the ordinary. Cases such as Hacking, Phishing, and Tracking are now common with millions falling as prey. Speaking of tracking comes a crucial topic in mind which is often overlooked called Email Tracking.
There are many ways to track email which range from marginally acceptable to horrible.
Research by Princeton University indicates that email tracking and the breach of privacy is real. You might be vulnerable to a privacy breach if you didn’t go through this article thoroughly.
More than 250 billion emails are being sent and received in a day, which is roughly 30 emails per person on earth. Out of which 40% of them are tracked.
Imagine a snail-mail in your inbox that keeps an eye on your web activity, just like a camera that monitors all your activity. You might not have stumbled upon one, but spam emails and ads (in some cases) are of that very ability.
The tracker can connect your email address to your browsing history and your profiles in the computer which might further lead to cross-device hacking and linking of online and offline activities. This indeed is quite haunting!
Would you even believe that you are being monitored right now reading this article by a third party? It’s frustrating and annoying getting monitored by someone whom you don’t even know.
How Does Email Privacy Work?
In simple terms, the mail sender embeds a web bug or a pixel tracker within the message content such as a PDF file; PPT PowerPoint slides or a Word document. These pixel trackers are small images size 1×1 pixels that are nearly invisible to a user. As soon as the file is or email is opened, it triggers your device to contact the sender of the email thus breaching your web privacy.
Best Practices to save yourself from Email Hackers
Some people have no reason to peek in someone’s life, this in many cases leads to scams and even blackmailing. These hackers can put your hard-earned money and your life at risk. Following are some general guidelines to provide guaranteed online safety.
– Fine Tune Your Email Settings
Embedding links to a pixel sized image are the most common method to track. Perhaps the easiest of the cure is to tune your email settings a bit.
Adjust your setting so that there is no image rendering which means no pixel tracker. If you want to inspect images in a specific email, then you can choose to turn off this feature, but be aware, this will allow email open trackers to work again.
If you are not sure whether your email address is secure or not, you can test easily by using the ‘Email Privacy Tester’ tools.
– Don’t Click Every Link You See
We humans have the anxiety to click every link we see to explore what’s hidden. Remember these links are the first step to risks such as privacy breach phishing. Avoid clicking links especially the one that lures you into clicking it.
– Construct a Personal Firewall:
To enhance the privacy of your email, create a personal firewall that prevents downloading images.
– Use a BestVPN
A VPN is a trusted source when you want to conceal your IP and stay incognito. It is a fantastic way to secure yourself from those anonymous emails.
However, many ways on the internet guarantee your safety in this regard, the ones mentioned above are the absolute and tested ones for guaranteed email protection.
Is Email Tracking the New “Cyber Monitor”?
The Open Email tracking is happening quietly on the web and is now being commonly practiced. New ways of email tracking are introduced as it helps third-party businesses to keep an eye on the likes and dislikes of its audience. This breached data is so valuable that businesses buy it to understand human behavior.
The real fear – someone is out there on the internet watching all your activity on the web.
The best option to safeguard your email privacy breach is to block images / turn off the auto downloading image in your email client.
Attention Tech-Leaders!
It is time that big tech firms like Google take action. If not then it is severe enough to have government intervention. If nothing is done at all, then I am afraid this email tracking, and breach of privacy can result in maligning public purposely.
