

GMail will now always show images by default - endergen
http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2013/12/images-now-showing.html

======
jpmattia
From the submitter title: > (Tracking always?)

Looks like submitter missed this in the post:

 _Of course, those who prefer to authorize image display on a per message
basis can choose the option “Ask before displaying external images” under the
General tab in Settings. That option will also be the default for users who
previously selected “Ask before displaying external content”._

Probably worth updating the HN title to reflect this.

------
endergen
Finally found a thorough answer on how open tracking will be affected by the
new changes.

Here's MailChimp's analysis: [http://blog.mailchimp.com/how-gmails-image-
caching-affects-o...](http://blog.mailchimp.com/how-gmails-image-caching-
affects-open-tracking/)

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RossM
I wonder if Google is going to add an Analytics component for Gmail or provide
some user-agent lists. Email is hard enough to test and get working well; for
the Gmail segment you won't know what browser versions to prioritise testing
in now.

Pretty effectively spoils Litmus and others though.

------
free652
Looks like gmail proxies the images via
[https://ci5.googleusercontent.com/proxy/](https://ci5.googleusercontent.com/proxy/).
I don't see an issue, gmail is already tracking me, but the sender can't track
me.

~~~
blazingice
Does the fetch happen immediately when Google receives the email? Or does it
occur the first time the user opens the email?

If the latter, sender image tracking will be alive and well.

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wnevets
I dont understand the (Tracking always?) part of the title.

~~~
endergen
I'm the poster, didn't mean to be provocative. The blog post didn't explain
how the secure proxy works. Normally email marketing uses a tracking image
that has a unique url to detect which users open an email. I'm wondering what
the behavior is for that now.

Is all email open tracking broken now? Good thing for users, not so good for
email marketing campaigns/tools.

Was hoping some gmail devs would comment here. The blog entry didn't have
comments enabled.

~~~
badbrain
see: [http://blog.movableink.com/gmails-recent-image-handling-
chan...](http://blog.movableink.com/gmails-recent-image-handling-changes-the-
impact-and-resolution)

~~~
endergen
Definitely looks like some tricks can be blocked. But no mention of how it'd
affect the classic technique of having a single pixel image with a unique URL
(Per user) so that you can track opens.

I'm assuming at this point that that would still work. But as mentioned in the
Movable Ink article all sorts of other tracking and image request headers are
lost.

