What is the impact on users due to specification change when displaying images in Gmail?

ByTom Page

When an image received by Gmail contains an image, it was not displayed in the initial setting, so it was necessary to click "Display the following image" and display it Specifications are changed to make all images open at the time of opening. It seems like a slight change in appearance, but on the other side of it it will actually change a lot of things.

Official Gmail Blog: Images Now Showing
http://gmailblog.blogspot.jp/2013/12/images-now-showing.html

With the New Gmail, People Will Know When You Open That Message | Wired Business | Wired.com
http://www.wired.com/business/2013/12/gmail-spying-explained

Gmail blows up e-mail marketing by caching all images on Google servers | Ars Technica
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/12/gmail-blows-up-e-mail-marketing-by-caching-all-images-on-google-servers/

How Gmail's Image Caching Affects Open Tracking | MailChimp Email Marketing Blog
http://blog.mailchimp.com/how-gmails-image-caching-affects-open-tracking/

According to Gmail's announcement, due to this specification change, the user can save the trouble of clicking "Display images below" to display the image, and it is said that it became possible to read the mail more safely.


However,WiredPoint out that this change in specification will bring great benefit to the sender of the mail. When an image in the mail is read, a notification is sent to the server of the mail sender, so that the mail sender can get information such as "When the recipient opened the mail".

Perform distribution service of e-mail magazineMailchimpAs well as Wired, "It is difficult to grasp the number of times recipients opened the same mail by displaying images automatically when opening mails, but even reading unread mails even once I will be able to know more easily if it is not possible. "

ByCoincoyote auvergne blog "l'autre pays du fromage"

Meanwhile, Ars Technica shows the opposite view from the others that the sender of the mail becomes more difficult to know "when the mail was opened by the recipient" due to this specification change. In this viewpoint, the image in the mail does not read from the sender's server, but since Google will manage the images in the mail, from the viewpoint of the company that is mail marketing, the user information is obtained It seems that it makes it more difficult for Google to manage user's privacy information.

"Making the marketing from images in e-mails difficult, companies that have been delivering advertisements by e-mailGoogle AdSense"Is not it the expectation that Google secretly holds," Ars Technica expects.

ByAngelo Su

This change in specifications only affects using Gmail on PCs and smartphones, and it is said that even if you read Gmail with iOS's mail application etc., it will not be affected. Gmail officially announces that it will be installed in Android's Gmail application from the beginning of 2014 to Gmail on PC from December 13, 2013 about changing the image display method. After all, it seems that the situation of the user suffering from spam does not manage anyhow ......