Email tracking is a big problem in the online world. It makes it so easy for spammers and other malicious people to send you emails. With email tracking, these people can see when an email has been opened and how many times it has been read. 

This information is used by marketers to improve their campaigns, but it can also be used by scammers to trick you into clicking links that lead to sites with malware or phishing schemes. If you want your online privacy back, then we recommend turning off email tracking on your email account.

But what are some of the ways you can do that? Unfortunately, most people don’t have any idea how they can stop email tracking, but that’s we’ll advise you today in this post. We’ll talk about how you can stop email tracking and be safe from any malicious attacks from the web.

How Do Emails Get Tracked?

One of the most popular ways people track emails is through pixels. A small image, which is the size of a single pixel, is normally attached to the end of the email. Therefore, when your email loads the picture, the email service you’re using retrieves that message from the sending server.

The server is then able to log when your email service loaded the image to understand when, and if, you opened the image or not. Other information such as your IP address can also alert the server to your location when you open the email.

In this post, we’ll go over the settings on how to stop email tracking in several email accounts.

How to Stop Email Tracking in Gmail

Here are the steps to locking down your Gmail account so that images aren’t being loaded and spammers aren’t able to see if you’re opening messages.

For desktop or browser Gmail access:

1. In your Gmail account, click on the gear icon located in the upper right corner.
2. Select the “General” tab
3. Scroll down to the “Images Category” and then select “Ask before displaying external images”
4. Scroll down
5. Click “Save changes”

If you’re using the Gmail Android app, here are the steps to follow:

1. Open the email app on your mobile device
2. Tap on the menu (3 horizontal lines) in the upper corner
3. Scroll down and select “Settings”
4. Tap on the account that you wish to alter
5. Scroll down and then choose “Images”
6. Select “Ask before displaying external images”

How to Stop Email Tracking in Yahoo!

Many people use Yahoo! mail. Scammers and email marketers know about this, which is why they use tricks to track emails. Here’s how you can stop your emails from being tracked as a Yahoo user.

1. In your Yahoo email account click the gear icon in the upper right corner
2. Click “More Settings”
3. Under the “Show images in messages menu” click on “Ask before showing external images”
4. You’re all done!

How to Stop Email Tracking in AOL.com

1. In your AOL email account, select “Options” and then “Mail settings”
2. Choose “General”
3. Under the “Reading category,” select “Hide images in the mail from unknown senders”

How to Stop Email Tracking in iOS Mail

When it comes to stopping email tracking in iOS mail, things are a bit different. Check out the settings to follow below:

1. Open settings on the app
2. Scroll down and then select “Mail”
3. Under the messages, click off on “Load remote images

How to Stop Email Tracking in Microsoft Outlook

If you’re using Microsoft Outlook, it’s relatively easy to stop your emails from being tracked. All you have to do is follow the steps below:

1. Open the Outlook app
2. Select “File” and then “Options”
3. Select the “Trust Center”
4. Click “Trust Center Settings”
5. Select “Don’t download pictures automatically in HTML email messages” or ensure RSS is checked.
6. You’re good to go!

Microsoft Outlook for Mac

1. In your email account, go to “File” > “Preferences” > “Reading”
2. Select “Automatically download images from trusted contacts”
3. You can also select “Disable all automatic download of images”

How to Stop Email Tracking in Apple Mail

Here’s how you can stop email tracking in Apple mail:

1. Log into your email account
2. Select “Mail” > “Preferences”
3. Click on the “Viewing” tab
4. Go ahead and uncheck “Load remote content in messages”

Aside from the settings above, you can also use an email client to block remote images by default. There are several applications that you can utilize such as Thunderbird, which allows you to download embedded content on an individual basis. It also only allows images from some of the contacts that you trust to avoid sending hidden code in their pictures.

Using Browser Extensions for Improved Email Privacy

If you prefer using extensions to stop email tracking, there is one reliable extension we can recommend. This extension is the PixelBlock for Google Chrome. PixelBlock helps to block pixel trackers and also notifies you in case of any tracking attempts.

Another option to consider is the Trocker for Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome. This web browser also functions similarly to the PixelBlock web browser. 

Therefore, both of these extensions can provide you with high-quality and excellent security in your email and prevent any email tracking attempts by spammers or email marketers.

How Can You Tell if Your Email is Being Tracked?

Most of the server-side trackers tend to send their email or even website URL together with the email. Therefore, you can inspect it to check for tracking. 

To find out whether your email is being tracked, simply head over to your email service and then look for the “Show original message option.” 

It will show you the server-side information. This is how you’ll know whether your email is being tracked or not.

Your Take?

Do you have any additional tips for stopping email tracking? If so, leave them in the comments!

Every day, people register accounts on new websites and applications. Unless you are subscribing to a newsletter or filling an online form, you will need to come up with a password to secure your account. This password must be secure and at the same time easy to remember. Using easy-to-remember passwords are recommended so that you don’t lose access to your account. A password that is secure and at the same time easy to remember is quite difficult to create. You need to meet certain requirements which include using Capital letters, small letters, and special characters.

What are Some of the Most Common Passwords Today?

When it comes to choosing a password, some people do not care about security, all they want is a password that they can remember, even if they have amnesia. Over the years, some passwords have been consistent and they have formed the most popular passwords on the internet. As you would have guessed, the more popular a password is, the less secured it will be. Hence, the most popular password is the least secure password.

So, what is this most popular password? Everyone wants to set a password that they can remember without racking their brain. The easiest word to remember when a system asks you for your password is “password”. True right? Your password, staring right at you waiting for you to use it. Surprisingly, this is not the most used password. Then what is it? If you are trying to create a password, the chances that you are using a qwerty keypad – whether on your keyboard or mobile device – are very large. When people look at their keyboard, they somehow think that “qwerty” will be a very secure password. And so many internet users use “qwerty” as a password to their account. But that still isn’t the most popular password.

Multiple kinds of research have helped to show that the most used password in the world is “123456”. This easy password has been consistent at the top of the list for many years. Other passwords that have been on this list include “1234567” & “12345678”, “12345”, and “picture”. Another word that has been used more often in the past years is “senha”. Sounds unintelligible but senha is the Portuguese interpretation for password. Some hopeless lovers even use phrases like “Iloveyou” for their passwords. All of these passwords are easy to guess and accounts that these passwords are used for can be easily hacked.

How Passwords Can Be Compromised

Every day, innocent people’s accounts are hijacked because someone somewhere was able to gain access to the account and change the details. Most of the time, it is almost impossible to regain access to these accounts unless you have certain security measures placed on the account. Generally, there are three major ways that hackers use to compromise a person’s password.

1. Guess: This is the most common method of compromising a person’s password. People, especially adults, use easy passers like some of the ones listed above. When people try to hack into an account, the first thing they do is to check if the password belongs to the category of the ones mentioned above.
2. Crack: When a password cannot be compromised by guessing, the next most conventional way of getting the password is to crack it. Cryptographers and other software geeks have tools for compromising different passwords depending on how secure that the passwords are.
3. Stealing: This method is highly deceptive and requires less brain work. You only need to gain access to a file or note where the password has been stored and steal it without the knowledge of the owner.

How to Avoid Using Common Passwords

Employees who use easy passwords can be used as a trojan horse to hack into a company’s security system. To avoid this security breach, many companies have employed the use of Multi-Factor Authentication(MFA) and Single Sign-On (SSO) services to enhance their security. However, there’s a limit to what the company can do to stay secure. A bulk of responsibility still lies in the hands of the employees.

Here are some ways that the use of common passwords can be abolished in personal and business spaces.

1. Password Managers: Applications like 1Password or LastPass can help employees to manage passwords and reduce password-related security risks. A password manager helps people to create and store secure passwords. These passwords consist of mixed letters (capital and small letters), numbers, and other special characters. Employees only need to remember only the password to their password manager to get access to all their secure passwords.
2. Multi-Factor Authentication: Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) takes longer than regular passwords. You have to answer security questions or take confirmation tests before you gain access to an account. With MFA, a code might be sent to your phone or you can be asked a personal question that no one else knows the answer to.
3. Password Generators: A password generator will create a random, highly-secure password for you. We have a great password generator here at Ghost Path that is free for you to use.
4. Security Education: Companies can create seminars or public lectures to educate their employees and people who use their services on how to create a secure password. They can also let them know about the risks involved when their account is hacked.
5. Unrelated Passwords: It is common for people to use something that relates to them when they want to create a password. Some people use their phone numbers, others use their date of birth, pet name, birth city, and so on. These passwords are easy to guess when the person trying to have your account is someone who knows you. As much as possible, try not to use any password that will lead back to you in any way.
6. Lengthy Passwords: The shorter a password is, the easier it is to hack. Even if it contains special characters and numbers. Aim for longer passwords when they are accepted, anywhere from 12 characters and up.

Conclusion

The internet is a wild and very public place, and passwords are the things that keep us private. Using passwords that are easy to guess means that any random person can access your private files and even steal your identity. Companies should incorporate password tests in the account creation process so that users can see how weak or strong a password is before they use it. To improve data security, password policies need to be upgraded and people need to learn that it is important to have a secure password.

Google famously keeps very meticulous records of all your online activity. If you have a Google account (such as Gmail or a business Google account) and stay logged into that account then Google is definitely tracking what you’re doing.

There are undoubtedly some legitimate uses of this data, but there’s no reason that it needs to be stored for any significant period of time. It turns out that Google does give you the option to have your data automatically deleted form your account after a chosen period of time.

What Information Does Google Allow You to Auto-Delete?

Google allows you to delete 3 broad categories of your historical data: Web & App History, Location History, and YouTube History. Once you get into the Google Account settings and get to this area you can click on the individual data categories to see examples of the data that you’ll automatically delete.

The most obvious example is your actual Google search history. There’s no reason for Google to (or for you to allow Google to) keep information on what you searched for 3+ years ago. That’s highly unlikely to provide any value to you now or in the future.

How to Automatically Delete Your Google Account History

It’s a rather simple process. Surprisingly simple, actually.

A very important note here. If you use multiple Google accounts, like me, then you’ll need to go through this process for each of your accounts. 

First, sign into the Google Account that you want to delete the history for.

Then, go to your Google Account settings. If you’re in Gmail, click your profile pic in the top-right corner and then select “Manage Your Google Account”.

Then click on Data and Personalization.

In the Data and Personalization screen you’ll see the area where you can choose your data retention settings.

Click on each of the 3 sections and you’ll see a screen similar to this:

This is where you can delete your past history, but most importantly, set it to automatically delete. Click on the Auto-delete link to choose the settings you want to use.

Feel free to choose whatever makes sense for you and your particular situation. Personally, I would recommend deleting anything older than 3 months for most people. If you’re a very heavy user then maybe you would want to stretch that to 18 months. I wouldn’t go longer than that.

It’s the same process for deleting the YouTube and Location history.

That’s it! You now have a little bit more privacy than you did before.