(no subject)

[arethinn]

Changes to emails you receive for new video uploads from your subscriptions (August 6, 2020)

ARGH. So that's why I suddenly stopped getting new video notifications from Youtube back in August. Would have been nice if they'd, you know, sent out AN EMAIL NOTIFICATION about that. I'm not sure exactly what they were tracking to claim that "Less than 0.1% of these emails are opened" - like, could they only see usage through the GMail app or on the website, and not when mail was fetched to an email client via POP/IMAP? and does reading the mail in plain text rather than HTML make a difference? - but I relied heavily on it. It was in fact my only way of receiving such notifications; I don't have anything set up to receive push notifications (nor do I want them) and I don't really go look at my Subscriptions, although now I guess I'm going to have to. So this joins the ranks of Google Reader and iGoogle in "dammit Google I was using that" for a service they claim was not being used enough to justify its continued existence. Pfeh.

Comments

[digitalsidhe]

I suspect you're knowledgeable enough about tech to know this already, but just in case, and just for other readers: If you've fetched your mail to your own POP or IMAP client, and you have turned off both read-receipt notifications and remote image loading, then no, I can't think of any way that the sender* could tell that you've opened the email.

And turning off HTML mail entirely and reading in text-only would naturally include turning off images.

* or anyone else, aside from someone physically looking over your shoulder


Sorry Google were stupid about this.