On Sun, Apr 23, 2023 at 12:50:18PM -0400, Todd Zullinger wrote:
> I suspect one likely group would be the companies who depend
> on advertising revenue. With HTML, they can stuff tracking
> (whether direct like hidden pixels or indirect by changing
> any URLs in the message to go through their servers. Those
> things aren't very useful in text/plain, so shipping a blank
> part just forces many folks to view the text/html.
This is precisely correct. And it's not just for advertising revenue,
it's also because the extraction of as much metadata (e.g., browser,
browser version, window size, etc.) as possible because of course that
data -- when processed, correlated, and bundled -- provides another
revenue stream. It also facilitates the abusive and completely unethical
practice of browser fingerprinting, a serious and dangerous invasion of
privacy.
The EFF has a tool that allows you to see what kind of information trackers
extract and how well your browser defends from them:
Cover Your Tracks
https://coveryourtracks.eff.org/
All of this is why -- when I teach system/network admin -- I tell my
students that they should NEVER read their email with a web browser.
Doing so risks not only their personal privacy/security, but that of
everything they manage.
---rsk
