Turn off thunderbird sending activity information back to email sender
My thunderbird configuration uses POP to download email onto my local computer. I recenly became aware that evrytime I read an email I have received from Constant Contact, Constant contact is being sent and report of my access that email. That is not refering to when the email is downloaded. After I download the message, Constant Contact is notified I have open the email. This happens just by opening the email, no links in the email have been clicked. I have the sending of return receipts turned off, but this seems like something different than a return receipt.
I suspect this is related to some of the tags I see in the email: X-Campaign-Activity-ID, X-Channel-ID, X-Feedback-ID, etc.
I am sure the marketing people on the other end love this, but to me it is an invasion of my privacy. Is there a way to prevent this in Thunderbird? It seems to me to be a no-brainer that email users should be able to prevent such an intrusion into their privacy. Am I wrong on that?
Isisombululo esikhethiwe
BINGO !!! Thanks gp. It was checked.
Too bad it is kind of an all or nothing type of thing in that incoming images and stylesheets will also get blocked. But I guess that is the nature of the design which is way beyond Thunderbird's control.
I appreciate the help.
Funda le mpendulo ngokuhambisana nalesi sihloko 👍 0All Replies (6)
Yes, I think you are wrong. Did you carefully read the terms and conditions when you signed up for the newsletter? My guess is that you did not. The terms and conditions are presented so people can make an informed decision on letting their email id be used by a marketing company. Constant Contact provides a paid service to companies to give them feedback on the success of their newsletters. One of those services is notifying them periodically of how many people read the newsletter and how many may have clicked a link on the newsletter. That is useful to companies to assess interest in their products. If you attempt to disable the reporting process, I suggest you unsubscribe from the service.
Your guess about knowing (or not knowing) CC's terms was wrong. My complaint is not with CC. I understand the value of the data to them and people/organization that use CC. The issue is with Thunderbird. And I did not realize Thunderbird would send back to senders that tracking information.
Thunderbird does have an option to turn off return receipt. So I thought I was safe (provided I did not click on links). I was uneducated about tracking report capability in emails. You think a browser should not provide protection about emails that private information about us? Allowing tracking to report opening an email compromises the protection afforded by turning off return receipt. You focus on CC, but this is not about CC. Anybody can put that tracking stuff in an email. Those selling SPAM lists can send out emails to a pool of address and the tracking can tell them which of those emails are "live". If Thunderbird will not block that, we have no way to protect ourselves except to not open any email which we can identify as potentiially danerous by looking at just the subject line (the "from" can be forged). That is not practical.
Hello azalea4va
in the Privacy and security tab, do you have remote content checked ? it's off by default.
Isisombululo Esikhethiwe
BINGO !!! Thanks gp. It was checked.
Too bad it is kind of an all or nothing type of thing in that incoming images and stylesheets will also get blocked. But I guess that is the nature of the design which is way beyond Thunderbird's control.
I appreciate the help.
Well, in fact images can very much be abused this way....
My focus on CC was because you had signed an agreement with them and now sought our help to relieve you of that agreement. We're not talking spammers here, but a specific issue with a legitimate company that follows all the laws and policies of internet communications.