Trackers Embedded in Email

choi

Brian X Chen, Stopping Snoops on Email. New York Times, Nov 19, 2015(under the heading "Tech Tip").
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/1 ... -in-email.html?_r=0

Quote:

"Trackers, which come in many forms including a single invisible pixel inserted into an email or the hyperlinks embedded inside a message, are frequently being used to detect when someone opens a message and even where that person is when the email is opened. By some estimates, trackers are now used in as much as 60 percent of all sent emails.

"The trackers are traditionally offered by email marketing services * * * The New York Times, too, uses email trackers in its newsletters.

"Because trackers are invisible, many people are unaware of them and have no inkling of how to dodge them.

"A basic method for thwarting some email trackers involves disabling emails from automatically loading images, including invisible tracking pixels. But that doesn’t defeat all trackers, which are also hiding in other places like fonts and web links.

My comment:
(a) There is no need to read the rest. This is not necessarily bad: In American law (likely in all jurisdictions: federal and states), service of court papers via first-class mail, postage prepaid is the gold standard; registered mail is not necessary. Email is mostly not accepted in the eyes of the law, because a recipient may claim he did not receive it (post office is different, because United States Supreme Court held a sender's words sufficed that on a certain day he mailed it). Now there seems to be a way  to demonstrate that not only does the email arrive at the in-box of the recipient, but also somebody opened the email.
(b) snoop (n): "one that snoops"
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/snoop