I don't see anything wrong with attempting this. A significant number of people mistype/change their e-mail address, and security messages from banks can be important, so anything that catches no-longer-working e-mail addresses is better for everyone involved. And I assume a very small proportion of people try to disable tracking pixels.

But this post is entirely speculation. The author has no evidence they're basing it on tracking pixels. They're literally just guessing.

And I'm dubious that tracking pixels would be a reliable enough signal to be worth it. Doesn't Gmail download images in advance anyways? Plus, I regularly filter predictable emails or just archive them directly from my inbox based on the subject line without opening.

I'd more likely assume they have an e-mail bounce detector that just has a bug in it.

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jmholla 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> But this post is entirely speculation. The author has no evidence they're basing it on tracking pixels. They're literally just guessing.

They literally admit to this and go on to provide the evidence for their guess:

> I think I can place a solid guess about what went wrong here.

	▲	crazygringo 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I know they admit it. I'm just pointing it out, since many of the comments here seem to be taking it as truth. And they don't provide any evidence. Not a single piece. Merely claiming it's a "solid guess" doesn't make it solid. It's based on nothing. Tracking pixels are extremely common, so there's nothing to suggest it's tied specifically to this. As opposed to, like I said, a buggy bounce detector.

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stronglikedan 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> I don't see anything wrong with attempting this.

I do, when the result of that attempt is to tell people to change their email addresses unnecessarily. Most people will fall for that.

	▲	crazygringo an hour ago \| parent [-]
		I think most people will just think it's weird and ignore it? The wording could obviously be better, it should use softer language with a note that if you're sure the email is correct then you can ignore the letter. But the general concept of trying to detect unused email addresses seems valid.