What happened to Email mirrors how the Internet itself has developed – from an idealistic community to a shark infested… I was going to write “nefarious sewer” but that’s going too far.

There are names for many kinds of the attempts to swindle: Standard Phishing, Malware Phishing, Smishing, Vishing, Pharming, Malvertising, Clone-Phishing, and Man-in-the-Middle Attacks.

Then there are Spy Pixels:

When you open an email, the sender can find out if you opened it, how often you reopened it, where you physically were when you opened it, how long you spent reading it, if you were on a phone or a computer when you opened it, and even what kind of phone or computer you own.

What’s startling is that the sender doesn’t even need your permission. By simply sending you an email, they’re able to learn things about your behavior that you’d never voluntarily offer up. All against your will.

They typically do this by using a service that embeds a spy pixel in emails they send you. A spy pixel is a tiny, often invisible image that’s hidden in an email. When you open the email, the image is downloaded from their server. Bingo – now they know you’ve read it (and potentially a whole lot more).

See also: BBC article ‘Spy pixels in emails have become endemic’

Apparently all of the mailing list programs use these spy trackers, which is another reason I am quite happy to have abandoned my mailing list.

Perhaps it started with Free email? Big companies offered FREE email accounts and we all jumped at that. Who doesn’t like something that’s free! We neglected to read the fine print about tracking everything we do. Read this about the extend of tracking.

What’s the solution? We either say it’s all fine, at least I am not paying for email – although, in truth we ARE paying for it because they sell the info they gather on us. What are the alternatives? I have discovered two alternatives that work for me.

The first alternative is ProtonMail. Read more about them at ProtonMail.com. There is even a free account option to let you check out the service. I have been using ProtonMail for a couple of years now and it works well for me.

The second alternative is Hey Email. Read more about is at Hey.com. There is no free option but you can trial the service for two weeks. I have only been using it for a few days and already don’t know whether I want to do without it. They have really thought about how email should work and designed something that’s better. As I wrote to Jon yesterday it costs about two lattes per month. You mean $10, he guessed. $8.25 per month I replied. I really don’t want to pay for yet another service, but I might have to keep Hey because I have a feeling it will promote my wellbeing.

And, by paying for something we earn the right to hold the payee accountable.