i’m getting a lot of emails from my bank and other services that make me aware that they use tracking pixels in emails. apparently they are obliged by the privacy regulator that is enforcing a recent EU directive. i didn’t even know that i was sending ip and client info simply by reading my emails in thunderbird or k9 on my mobile. is there a way to deactivate these? and is there a risk that by doing so the bank thinks the email is compromised or non existant. its incredibile to see how sophisticated data hoovering technology has become. the internet has become a real mess …


Email aliasing services, which are genuinely good services to use, strip those pixels from inbound emails. At least Firefox Relay, Addy and SimpleLogin do
@[email protected]:
100% this!! My aliasing service (Addy) removes tracking pixels and gives me a nice little overview of the pixels it’s removed over the last week.
I can’t recommend an aliasing service enough (in addition to the other benefits they offer).
Would something like pihole also strip out all this crap? I’ve been meaning to get it on my network for a while.
I’m not too sure, maybe? If the tracking pixel is on a domain known to serve ads or trackers, it might, but if it’s on a legitimate domain (e.g. your ISP’s) I don’t think it can, since you’d have to have added the ISP’s domain to the Pi-hole blacklist