protonmail (*) found a tracker into the last e.foudation letter (received this morning).
What about the privacy ?
Arnaud
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Which tracker?
Is it possible that it’s just remote content that lets e-Foundation verify that you opened the message?
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I don’t known about the tracker. As you see (circled in red) the tracker notification is all I have.
Arnaud
I, too, use Protonmail’s app on my /e/phone. With Blokada5 active, I don’t see any suspicious trackers emanating from the Protonmail app itself. (I don’t have any direct emails from Protonmail at the moment, or else I would compare.)
Do you also receive emails from Protonmail in a mail client such as Thunderbird on your computer? If so, you can view the remote content for that email without enabling it, and get an idea of what it is.
in fact, it is not a tracker from Protonmail but a tracker found by the Protonmail web site (it’s a new feature from them).
from ProtonMail, about the tracker I have :
Sendgrid.com
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http://url6423.e.foundation/wf/open?upn=xQ1DyBXv2ZpWxRUg7lJY4zo9sSotmLZTNR6MWFlzw4HNu5-2Byez-2BZCroCQt0z9YfH85IKKYgwgojdHF0hKCYy7EF6fxLF6v-2Bu9tgtl3Cj-2FHzrqslypTojBekbdlOiciCF7lSE1wXB2MNF6onK16-2B-2B3i5mCOjbKPkZpDTqz7oo-2BDbzgOFqxdJPdK1nQKqMSpILkXjSvkr-2BHLU5TuiHyPCX4Ia5-2Fxgb7jnNrUv24D4qcVp-2F57E3CQeexgKzIc0BEE7IoGx8LK2jkEXWENQOx8BMoX44NtEul0gy1BDPC79i4XQh4C-2B-2By6eHu12qbp6UaYbnhPDjuETQDJ12evtD0aMuBVH9zNraw6bPwgf2w01AiRMMjNToSd7uV2xs0Jbonq9cAzhLcXqhhohBbhRAMKjNZacdnLW2qej3A3s8FMtDovA1-2FOPN7L6mR6Uyy4QIoyXG6001shn7dRdXIS2D6ON1nA-3D-3D
Oops… I started right, but then confused things. Sorry.
Pl raise an issue in gitlab and will have the team check it. Will pass on the details to the team to investigate.
Glad the OP has asked, I noticed the same thing today. I as well am using Protonmail and wanting more info on this tracker.
Newsletter yesterday and the tracker is still there…
The "Leaving Apple … " newsletter which has been send today (13th dec.) still contains the Sendgrid tracker (at least Proton is detecting it). Why is a privacy aimed OS tracking its readers? The old topic about this issue was closed, so I opened a new one.
Is it possible to send us next time newsletters without tracking/tracing readers?
1 email tracker blocked
Email trackers can violate your privacy. Proton found and blocked 1 tracker.
Collapse URL
https://mailing.e.foundation/wf/open?upn=r3XecG9Oeir8G6iSrKDq5B (… deleted…).
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This is because the issue has still not been resolved. The team is working on it. Do not have an ETA
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At least it will add some credibility for a foundation with the slogan : Your data is YOUR data!
Regularly on this forum I see these remarks concerning the marketing practices of /e/ but I always ignore them because in my opinion it does not discredit /e/, because /e/ is an operating system for mobile and not an online marketing company. They cannot be everywhere, in every field, there are already struggling so much with issues in Gitlab and apps that they cannot improve or fix because they need the developer of the app to do it for example. that’s what worries me, not these newletters (which content I find very good and well written, by the way)
Yes, I understand that, for me the OS is also the most important thing. But the people who use this OS tend to be more concerned with privacy or more privacy-conscious anyway. If you then find a (hidden) email tracker in the newsletter, in my opinion you don’t really come across as 100% credible, even if it is just a (small) detail. For me personally, it is these small details that stop me (for the time being) from donating the foundation…
Fair enough. I see your point. The overall attention that they put in their operations to be in line with their values. I like that Manoj considers the topic. it shows they care, also about privacy in general, as a value.
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This is a good example of why it’s important to look at a question from all sides (well, both sides, in this case). A tracker as such is just a tool. It’s what it’s used for that is important.
From the perspective of the sender, it’s useful to know whether the mails that you send get opened (and one might suppose, read). That’s probably all that the sender wants to do in this case, and the tracker is harmless.
The trackers we want to avoid, are mostly the ones that are used in conjunction with links, so that the sender not only knows who opened the mail, and when, but which links they clicked and when, and what they did later. Those are the ones we’re probably all wanting to avoid.
Trackers can be avoided in many cases by setting the e-mail client software to not download external content (typically such as images). A more sophisticated security approach, such as that offered by the FairEmail app, can not only indicate the presence of trackers, but also allow (if desired) external content to be downloaded without activating the trackers that the app has detected.
However it might be an idea for e.foundation, to add a footnote to the e-mail explaining the presence of the tracker and what it’s used for, in the same way that websites now (in Europe have to) explain their use of cookies. Indeed, I’d like to see the E.U. legislation follow up on trackers what they’ve done for cookies; but the subject is technically more complex.
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It is also possible to collect your device type, operating system, IP-address, geographic location,…
Problem is : we do not know what data is collected and what it is used for.
And while I don’t mind this data being used by the e.foundation, in this case a third party is involved (Sendgrid), so I still would have liked to decide for myself whether to give my data to this company or not.
There are links to click on in the newsletters!
Any news on this??
The tracker has disappeared from the newsletter 
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Yes, the team has removed it from the NL sent out this week. Do let us know in case you still
have any issues.
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