How about...put a notification of tracking in emails that contain it rather than making it invisible and then include an opt out link? That seems....not hard.
Tech shouldn’t really be creepy by default, nor should it really establish needy/clingy behaviour, which is what I think non-consensual read tracking tends towards.
I mean, personally, I would consider it a significant invasion of my privacy if anyone who sent me an email knew when I opened it and, roughly, where, without me knowing.
The problem with the internet and tech companies now is that there is an established pattern of you being able to consent on behalf of other people purely by virtue of giving access to your contact list, or using a certain mail client. You are giving away their data, not your own.
However, given that I'm extremely doubtful that SuperHuman will remove the feature completely, I'm going for what I consider a minimum standard of decency: disclosure and the ability for recipients to opt out.
One of the reasons I use WhatsApp heavily is the read statuses. A single checkmark underneath the message means it was sent. Two checkmarks mean it was delivered. When the checkmarks turn blue, it means the recipient read the message.
I love, love this feature. If I could wave a wand and instantaneously make it standard for ALL methods of communication, I would do it in a heartbeat.
What about for solicited messages? Just curious.
I think a mistake was made when some messaging apps turned it into an opt-out and also made it punitive, in that opting out would mean that other people’s read receipts would be disabled.
I don’t think it would be so bad if every single data point wasn’t hoovered up and sold to third parties. They’re probably using this read status feature to measure engagement and decide how to target more ads. They can infer a lot: who you respond to quickly, who you don’t... who is intimate and who is an acquaintance. Who is important, who isn’t.
But I don't like non-opt-in "features" like Messenger's activity indicator. It is no one's business when I was last on FB, or if I have accessed it via computer or mobile.
Obviously this would depend on whether a sending app decides to honor it, but responsible senders would have a harder time justifying ignoring it.
[1]: https://twitter.com/troyd/status/1146554065553256448, https://twitter.com/troyd/status/1146561165687869440
1. A recipient-specific "Do Not Track" option could apply to recipient-specific link/click tracking, not just open tracking.
2. Ideally, all email clients would have an option not to load images by default, but based on the comments in this thread, some don't. One popular example seems to be [Gmail for iOS](https://support.google.com/mail/answer/145919?co=GENIE.Platf...): "Images will always appear in the Gmail app on your iPhone or iPad."
A third-party service could give some control to users of clients without this feature. (Whether the responsibility belongs on the sender, the recipient, or both is totally debatable and in practice, not very relevant. For all stakeholders, the goal is to communicate in a way that satisfies all parties well enough to keep communicating. Recipients have been at a disadvantage due to lack of information, and as their awareness increases, their expectations will rise.)
3. Right now, there's no way for companies which actually care about privacy and/or recipient preferences to stand out from those which don't, or which don't yet claim to. This would be one of few ways to discern white/light grey-hat senders and mail delivery services from dark grey/black-hat ones.
He could benefit from consent training.
You could opt out of future emails I suppose, but there's not really a way to stop this. Nothing stops me from embedding my own tracking pixel in the email either.
If you don’t want that to happen, configure your computer to not do that. Same thing for storing cookies.
The thing that really troubles me is that in this new app-based world, these sorts of options are slowly becoming extinct.
The very fact that you can choose different web browsers, some that accept and save cookies and some that don’t, or different email clients, some that load remote content and some that don’t, means that the user made a choice.
They purchased hardware that they chose, they installed and configured apps and services that they chose, or that came preinstalled on the hardware that they chose.
I would venture a guess that most consumers do not opt to fully understand the consequences of their consumption choices, sure. But that doesn’t mean that their choices, or the consequences thereof, are any less their own. Ignorance of the consequence of one’s choices is itself a choice.