Emails are full of tracking links, especially in newsletters and promotional mailing lists, which can pass sensitive information about you to the sender. They’re such a problem that Proton Mail, the privacy-sensitive alternative to Gmail and other email platforms, is trying to prevent it with a new “Tracking Links Protection” feature.
When you hover over (or click) a link in a marketing email or newsletter, you may notice that the link’s URL address isn’t the intended destination. Instead, the link might point first to a tracking or analytics platform, which reports information about you and your device to whoever sent the email. The page usually immediately redirects to the intended page, so it’s not always noticeable. Tracking links are primarily used to track if a link was clicked on (for determining conversion rates for ads, for example), but might also record other data, like your IP address and device type.
Proton said in its announcement, “Proton is committed to doing everything it can to keep its users’ data private and secure. That’s why it is today launching Tracking Links Protection, a feature that removes known trackers associated with links embedded in an email. This means that personal information is not shared with marketers when a user clicks on a tracking link.”
A few email applications have some protection against tracking links, but they’re primarily focused on outright scams. For example, Mozilla Thunderbird automatically blocks links that appear as one URL but take you to a different site. A solution that explicitly targets tracking links requires a bit more work, which Proton Mail is attempting to accomplish. Apple is developing a similar feature for Mail, Messages, and Safari in Private Browsing mode, which is expected to arrive in the iOS 17, iPadOS 17, and macOS Sonoma updates later this year. Proton Mail already blocks tracking pixels by default — another popular method of tracking that can tell the sender when an email is opened.
You can try out Proton Mail for free, and there are paid plans that add additional storage and unlock features in Proton’s other products, like Proton VPN and Proton Drive.