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Amazon know when you open their emails?!
 

I sent a giftcard to myself yesterday; i just open the mail now. In the next seconds i did so, i got an email saying "the person you sent the giftcard to has received it"..!! Find it more than strange, can't be a coincidence.. Seems their system can know you have opened an email from them..?

Re: Amazon know when you open their emails?!
 

Yes they know when you open an email, and the IP used to open it.
If you use something like gmail, they will see google server IP.

And at times, they know when you wipe your butt too!!!! :eek:

Re: Amazon know when you open their emails?!
 

Yes they can. Emails the person who sent it to say its been received by the other person.

An email is only sent once you click the button to add it to your account though

Re: Amazon know when you open their emails?!
 

But how come they can? Do they have special rights from google & else..?

Re: Amazon know when you open their emails?!
 

I guess the email you received contained images and you loaded them right?

I think that's the only way Amazon could know when you open their emails.

I read somewhere in this forum that you should disable the loading image function of gmail.

Re: Amazon know when you open their emails?!
 

I still don't get the point.. The image is in the mail itself.. Can you explain?

Re: Amazon know when you open their emails?!
 

it is beacons on images.
One of the biggest linking of accounts is this way.

Re: Amazon know when you open their emails?!
 

They don't know whatever person really received coupon, they only know that they successfully sent email with coupon and they assume that it must be received, there is no way they can check what IP checks email as its just html message without any scripts, its nonsence

people who hold disabled images in emails are stupids who dont know anything about programming, websites and HTML language, email contains link to image which is shown in message and same image is sent to everyone, there is no way that they can track what IP on what email is currently looking into images...

Re: Amazon know when you open their emails?!
 

I think the vast majority of the members on this forum will disagree with you.

Re: Amazon know when you open their emails?!
 

Well I don't care much whatever they will agree or not, I just wrote what in my best knowledge I think is truth, majority of members of this forum doesn't have knowledge of HTML and PHP,

Its totally different if we speak about images uploaded to listings, I don't say anything about them

But saying that reading email and having images unblocked will get you tracked down is nonsense, I don't believe anyone have been linked in this way and can prove it, majority of members in this forum is trying to guess but they don't know or aren't sure.

To clarify one more time, Amazon and eBay are just sending HTML emails which contains codes to images, something similar to below:

you can access images directly by just coping image link from your email

Images are just stored into servers and because it's their images and not yours they cannot or won't be able to track who is viewing them, any image is usually sent using just HTML email template by automatically generated system message so they send it to every single user who needs to get that email and use same image in every email.

Re: Amazon know when you open their emails?!
 

Now I am not IT expert, but when we ran our website we would send 1000's of e mails to our customer base. We were able to analyse how many emails were opened and who opened them, who sent them straight to trash and people who never opened or deleted them instantly.
All this info was sent back to us, so if we could do it 10 years ago god knows what amazon can do now.

Re: Amazon know when you open their emails?!
 

They can tell when an email is opens if there is a becon in the email

They can even tell what IP address opened the email. This is because they can send a unique becon to each single person

In the case of Gmail though it would just be the Gmail servers IP that they see

Disable images/becons and they cannot tell if you have opened an email as far as I have ever been aware

Re: Amazon know when you open their emails?!
 

Sorry but what is beacon/becon in email language..?! Still don't get it..

Re: Amazon know when you open their emails?!
 

No. He clicked and opened the image in the email. He opened the code and thats when he got the email.
He could have opened the email all day long but the second he clicked on the link or image of the code, they know.

If they could see the IP of everyone they send an email to, that is not something that happens. I would have been linked to so so many accounts.

Re: Amazon know when you open their emails?!
 

Buy the book. Knowledge isn't free.

Re: Amazon know when you open their emails?!
 

Google is..........But I thought we were here to help, not hinder Stevie

Re: Amazon know when you open their emails?!
 

just imagine everyone here helping each other to open 1000/$50000 accounts, would be wonderful :eek:

Re: Amazon know when you open their emails?!
 

Simple terms

Becon is an impeded unique pixel

When an email is opened that pixel is downloaded

Because the pixel is unique Amazon can see what time it was downloaded at and by what IP

Therefore they know when the email is opened

Re: Amazon know when you open their emails?!
 

Found some info on beacons on wiki... Just search google or wiki for "web beacon"... Lots of info there.

Like James said, a beacon is usually just 1x1 pixel in size and is transparent. Users aren't even aware of its presence but when this image is loaded (or in Gmail's case if the image is clicked), then the sender (Amazon or whoever) will know that the user has read the email and will also know what IP address downloaded/clicked that image.

Following is an extract from wiki:

"Web beacons embedded in emails have greater privacy implications than beacons embedded in web pages. Through the use of unique identifiers contained in the URL of the web beacons, the sender of an email containing a web beacon is able to record the exact time that a message was read, as well as the IP address of the computer used to read the mail or the proxy server that the user went through. In this way, the sender can gather detailed information about when and where each particular recipient reads email. Every subsequent time the email message is displayed can also send information back to the sender."

Re: Amazon know when you open their emails?!
 

Think you guys might have got the wrong end of the stick + language barrier.

OP isn't talking about just opening an email from Amazon he is talking about the email that is sent to the person who sent the gift card.

i.e. I send a gift card to JamesNorth101, he receives the gift card, clicks on ADD GIFT CARD TO MY ACCOUNT. When that has been clicked and the funds are added to the Amazon account, an email is sent to say that the person who received the gift card has received it.

This has nothing to do with linking.

Re: Amazon know when you open their emails?!
 

OP sent a giftcard to himself from Amazon.. Amazon sent his buyer account the email... OP read email sent to buyer account.. OP received email from Amazon on seller account saying that buyer received the gift card... OP didn't mention anything about sending adding gift card to Amazon... Just said that he opened the email, that's it.

That's what I got from what he wrote... I was merely stating that Amazon uses beacons to know when an email has been read... ;)

If OP mentioned adding the gift card to Amazon, then everything we discussed above becomes irrelevant...

Re: Amazon know when you open their emails?!
 

You dont get an email on the seller account until the person on the buyer account has added the the Gift Card to the Amazon account, there is no more to it than that.

You only see the 'XYZ has received a gift card you sent' when the person has added it to their account.