> 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.
Anyone know what the author was referring to here when saying "fonts"? My impression was disabling images and not clicking links made it impossible to track the opening of an email.
I believe he was referring to web fonts [1], which, like images, can be configured to be downloaded from the sender's server, thus informing them that you opened the e-mail.
I'd guess they're talking about using web-loaded fonts in an HTML message? In that case you'd know when the user fetched the font.
We nerds know that the "Load Remote Content" button (or whatever it's called in your MUA) basically means "call in the creeps," but that takes a certain amount of tech savvy. Now we get to try to explain to grandma why reading an e-mail might break her computer and steal her credit cards. It's a bummer that email got infested with the Web (2.0?) virus.
That's what you get for thinking it was a good idea to render html in email.
Seriously. What did they expect?