• by Gavin O'Malley , Staff Writer @mp_gavin, December 13, 2013

Contrary to some initial industry reactions, a change to Gmail this week will not impact marketers’ ability to measure open rates within Google’s email product. So The Switch’s Andrea Peterson insists. Rather, changes to the way Google is implementing its image caching system could actually lead to "more accurate" measurement of unique open rates, according to Peterson. That’s “because under the previous system the subscribers who opened emails without displaying images were effectively invisible to marketers,” she contends. “That's because previously, Gmail wouldn't display an image until users clicked a ‘show images’ button … Because its image-caching system reduces the security and privacy risks from third-party images, Google is changing Gmail so that images load automatically when users open an email.”