Apparently they can't track IP and Device info but still can track when and how many times someone open.

Last info found googling was from 2013 though: https://blog.filippo.io/how-the-new-gmail-image-proxy-works-...

They do, but they still load images on-demand the first time you open an email.

So a spammer will know if and when you opened email; but they would not know your IP or user agent.

The former is usually the most important part, and it is not blocked at all.

Yeah that's a shame. I guess it would be too expensive for Google to load the images of every single email though it would kinda avoid this issue. But I can see why that isn't really a feasible option.

> I guess it would be too expensive for Google to load the images of every single email though it would kinda avoid this issue

Would it really? I have no idea what the dollar cost of that would be. I can see not wanting to pay for a feature most people wouldn't use, but I certainly think Google could afford it.

The biggest question would be what percent of pictures are loaded now and at what cost?

I know I get a lot of emails that I don't open all the time but still occasionally open. I am sure there are a lot of people in a similar boat. It's definitely a bit of a hard problem. I can see it being worth it for Google to implement into business accounts Gmail's, but not as economical for doing it on personal accounts.

It's also avoidable by just setting your email client to not load images by default. Not sure if gmail offers this, but I think it does.

Yeah haven't check if it's an option in Gmail but I am sure it is. Emails that get sent to spam however will not show images by default.

General settings : "Ask before displaying external images"

they could preload them only for people who have the "never show images by default" setting turned on