• by Ray Schultz , July 5, 2019

Recently, there has been mounting concern over the ability of apps to track email opens.

Case in point: The Superhuman app. It can inform a sender that a recipient opened their email, How-To Geek reports.

Superhuman has removed location-tracking, the account continues. But tit continues to track opens. And other apps continue to offer location tracking, How-To Geek continues.

As used by marketers, this capability is one more in a long line of issues that could reach the ears of regulators.

The app works by embedding a small tracking image emails, the report continues—hardly a new technology.  

“This isn’t unique to Superhuman!,” How-To Geek writes. “While it’s not normally part of a consumer email application, many email newsletters and other marketing emails have long used tracking pixels.”

It continues: “They know how many people open each email—and they can see which people on their mailing list open each email.”

However, Superhuman CEO Rahul Vohra tells that the capability can easily be blocked.

He notes that “there are browser extensions like Ugly Email and PixelBlock that can block tracking pixels—without blocking other images—in Gmail in your web browser.”

However, it adds that “these will only work in Gmail in your browser and they aren’t guaranteed to block all tracking images.”