On 16/06/2022 22:39, Bill Cole wrote: > >> I realize links would have to be pulled to generate the image but >> ultimately I would like the end user to just get an image >> representation of what the html email would look like with no links >> or link following by the MUA. > > Therein lies the badness. > > Remote retrieval of links within email should only ever happen by the > explicit intentional action of a human user. Images in HTML email that > have remote sources (as opposed to 'cid:' links to included MIME > parts) are used as surveillance tools by senders. Fetching and > displaying those will always tell the sender that the message has been > viewed, or at least that's what email marketers like to tell > customers. In practice, many MUAs only fetch remote resources in mail > when explicitly told to do so, so "open rates" are just so much snake > oil, so it isn't as if you would be destroying a useful metric, you'd > just be spoiling it in the oppoosite direction as most existing > breakage. If email marketers come to believe that sending to addresses > on your system makes their "open rates" look really good, guess what > happens... > > Rendering the HTML without remote resources is certainly possible, but > often the appearance is quite wrong without them. > I would add that there are also legitimate reasons why emails might contain links and why the recipient would not want those links visited automatically.
A recent example that comes to mind is where I requested a quote from a nearby shop, who emailed it to me including a link for me to accept the quote and place the order. In a corporate setting emails also routinely contain links for approving or rejecting requests.
