Back in June, we initially reported about the upcoming changes in iOS 15. Since that time, there has been a lot of discussion, articles and webinars about the topic.  

There’s no doubt the iOS 15 Mail Privacy Protection changes are significant and will have a direct impact on how marketers track the success of their email programs. When faced with such a drastic and sudden change, it’s only natural to try and seek out ways that will keep or rationalize the status quo.  

Hieronder staan vier inzichten over de meer genuanceerde en niet direct voor de hand liggende gevolgen van de wijzigingen in iOS 15.

1. De gevolgen gaan verder dan iCloud.com e-mailaccounts

Mail Privacy Protection will impact any email account that is set up within the Apple Mail.app in iOS 15, iPadOS 15, or MacOS Monterey. Generally, we expect this to impact 30-40% of a recipient’s user list. 

2. Gebruikers hoeven Mail.App niet actief te gebruiken voor e-mail om in aanraking te komen met de bescherming van de privacy van e-mail.

Let’s consider a common scenario: a user sets up their email account in Apple Mail.app, Gmail’s App, and also routinely makes use of the Gmail Web App. Even if the user rarely (or never) opens their email in Apple Mail.app, Mail Privacy Protection will still pre-load images because the email account was set up in Apple’s Mail.app. In this case, a sender will see opens from Apple’s image proxy and Gmail’s image proxy.  

3. Controleer regelmatig op wijzigingen in de User-Agent String

Per Google, a browser’s user-agent string helps identify which browser is being used, what version, and on which operating system. Currently, the user-agent string that Apple’s proxy servers are sending when requesting images is Mozilla/5.0. While there is no direct indication that this belongs to Apple’s image proxies, our testing indicates that the string doet accurately identify requests coming from Apple’s image proxies. This, in turn, may allow senders to filter out Apple proxy opens from their metrics or segment them differently. It is unknown whether Apple will change this in the future. As such, it will be important for senders to monitor for changes to this string and to adjust accordingly.

4. Vertrouw niet op technische hacks of omwegen

History has shown us that any technical workarounds to bypassing privacy-related functionality are often short-lived, harms your reputation, and are quickly closed. Even though early testing indicates there are some workarounds to Apple’s preloading of images, we believe senders should not rely upon or use these workarounds. 

Bij de eerste bètatests zijn de volgende beperkingen van de Mail Privacy Protection geconstateerd:

• Preloaden gebeurt voornamelijk wanneer de gebruiker op wifi zit en wanneer hij is aangesloten.
  Early testing indicates that preloading only happens when the user is on wifi and their phone is plugged into power. This behavior is a little unexpected and will be interesting to observe as Apple moves to General Availability for iOS15. In practice, what this means is that the open events are even more random than initially thought. It seems open events can occur when the user actually opens the message, or when the user hasn’t opened the message but is on wifi and the phone is charging – or some other combination of events that Apple decides. All of this points naar de same conclusion: open tracking on Apple devices can’t be trusted.

• Door de gebruiker geïnitieerde open events worden getriggerd wanneer de afbeelding wordt geladen via externe CSS.
  Testing also indicates that user-initiated open events are triggered when the image is loaded via an external CSS file. While on the surface this might seem like good news, we strongly recommend against using this approach. It’s extremely likely that Apple, like HEY already did, will close this loophole. (Lees de Twitter thread.)

Maar er is een meer fundamentele reden om deze aanpak niet te gebruiken: gebruikers die hebben gekozen voor Mail Privacy Protection hebben expliciet gezegd dat ze niet willen dat providers hen volgen via e-mailopeningen. Het gebruik van dit soort workarounds verraadt dat gebruikersvertrouwen, is een slechte praktijk en schaadt uiteindelijk de reputatie van uw merk.

Change is inevitable. And with change, comes uncertainty.  

Het is belangrijk om te onthouden dat het uiteindelijke doel nooit het bijhouden van opens is geweest - maar het bereiken van onze doelgroep door e-mails te versturen waarmee ontvangers in contact willen komen. Zolang verzenders dat als hun belangrijkste doel voor ogen houden, zullen we ons samen aanpassen om nieuwe gebruikers- en privacygerichte manieren te vinden om de resultaten te meten.

~Chris Adams
Distinguished Engineer 

Met de hulp van het dreamteam: George Schlossnagle, April Mullen, Elliot Ross, en Koertni Adams...