Superman email tracking told someone when you opened their email and from where. Even if Superhuman removed the feature entirely in response to privacy pressures, other apps will still be able to track your email opens. Here’s how to stop it.
While Superhuman has now removed location tracking, it still supports email open tracking. And other email tracking apps can let those who send you emails know your geographic location.
How can an application track email?
The superman uses a feature that has existed for a long time. It embeds a tiny image of the tracking pixel in the emails it sends. When you open an email, your email client asks for an image. The image is unique to each email, so Superhuman can see exactly when you’ve opened an email and your general location based on your IP address.
This is not unique to Superman! While not usually part of a consumer email application, many email newsletters and other marketing emails have been using tracking pixels for a long time. They know how many people open each email and they can see which people on their mailing list open each email.
Despite all the hype, Superhuman just takes the existing email feature and unleashes it in a new, albeit scarier way for a lot of people. Superhuman has now disabled the open tracking feature by default, but any Superhuman user can enable it.
Even if Superhuman continues to lean into the pressure and remove the feature entirely, people will still be able to use other email tools — from dedicated email apps to browser extensions that integrate with Gmail — to keep track of your email opens.
RELATED: How People See When You Open Emails (And How to Stop Them)
