Gmail for android silently overwrites links in your emails, so it can track what you open
I clicked on a link inside an email from a privacy service, and was surprised to see they used google tracking for their stuff, so I opened it in thunderbird and behold, it had no tracking.
But the worst part is... if I went back again and long pressed the link on gmail, it showed the link preview, WITHOUT the tracking. There's some kind of rule, so try it first on a new, unopened email, without long clicking. You'll need something to intercept it because the browser will just redirect to the main link.
Imagine the mailman looking at you, noting down which letters you open, it's crazy.
I noticed this thanks to link eye, an app that intercept all browser links and shows a list of supported apps, so you can redirect to the preferred one. It also displays the link, it's abandoned but still working.
I'm 99% sure I have all the privacy stuff set correctly. I suppose it may also happen on desktop/ios, but I have no way to check it
Also fedia is not showing me a field to set the post title, so I'm sorry if everything ends up in the title or if the title is empty
long press
opened link
Absolutely everything is tracked in Gmail. Spend an extra second hovering over the send button for Sara's email and it will be in their data model for you. That's the whole point of Gmail for them.
Even without redirect links, it would be entirely possible to use other app mechanisms to track which links are clicked.
Ha, clicking links, like, with a mouse? https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/vimium-c/
I remember being real excited about the eye tracking software getting better, as it meant we'd likely be able to communicate with my aunt better (we can communicate To just fine) and then thought about how we have these cameras pointed at our faces a lot.