Just type’email tracking’ into your search engine and watch all the software apps appear. Tracking software is embedding software into the message.

You click a link in a promotional email that leads to the page for a product you want to buy. The link has been coded to be trackable. It will go to another server with a variety of data, like what browser you are using or where you clicked the link from, before it takes you to the article.

The method that we’re looking at is tracking pixels is n’t quite so obvious. It’s easy to spot a redirect link, but there are other methods that are n’t so obvious.

A single tracking pixel is embedded into the email. When the email is opened, code within the pixel sends the info back to the company’s server.

There have been some attempts to restrict the amount of information that can be transmitted this way. For example, Google has served all images through its own proxy servers, which could hide your location from at least some tracking applications.

You wo n’t be able to avoid all of the trackers that might be hidden in your email this way, but you will stop many of them. Stop your email from automatically loading images.