This is the reason why you never enable images in your email client.

Gmail sucks a bit because it always enables certain images in email and that means that google pixel trackers are really hard to block if you use google mail. If I were an employee, I’d switch to a non-google email client.

The privacy issue is problematic, but their functionality is also buggy. Untrained users will misinterpret them as they can get triggered by previews or other functions beyond just reading the message.