Stop Email Tracking | Hacker News Reader

Stop Email Tracking

alireza.gonevis.com

8 pointsAlir3z43 comments

There's a reason why every successful social media platform has scummy, creepy, privacy-invading practices. It's because if one doesn't do that, one doesn't build an audience.

Ditto with email trackers ... if you don't do it, people will fall off your list, and you won't build and retain your audience.

These practices work, and have emerged from the evolutionary processes of the web in general. There's no point in lamenting them, because the muggles will fall for them every time, and they will continue to become more invasive and more unpleasant.

> if you don't do it, people will fall off your list, and you won't build and retain your audience.

How? What does tracking have to do with people being interested in your content? If you send good stuff, people will buy your things/services/etc and you'll see it in your bottom line without tracking. A single, respectful link to https://example.com/product?ref=email to attribute the conversion to an email would be fine as well as long as it's not per-user and does not involve third-parties (most tracking links out there involve a third-party and obfuscate the final target link).

Furthermore there might be GDPR implications as well. IP addresses as well as device fingerprints are definitely considered personal data, they are inherently sent as part of loading the tracking pixels and yet open tracking is not essential to providing the service, thus should be opt-in (and nobody in the right mind would opt-in).

> These practices work, and have emerged from the evolutionary processes of the web in general.

Malware and spyware works as well, and yet we generally agree that it's a bad and illegal thing to do. Why should this be any different?

I'm not arguing that it's a good thing, I'm observing that all successful platforms engage in these practices. That implies that there might be a causal or evolutionary link between the two.

Again, I'm not arguing that it's a good thing, but there is evidence (not proof!) that if you don't engage in these practices then you won't be successful.

Consider two mailing lists with content equally well suited to their audiences. One engages in these practices, the other doesn't. The one who engages in these practices has more information, and therefore has more opportunity to tailor their content more precisely. Under evolutionary pressure, the one engaging in these practices is more likely to survive.

I'm not arguing that it's a good thing, but I'm saying that there are reasons why it's turned out like this.

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