<p>Google announced a change to the way that Gmail handles images Thursday. Traditionally, when an e-mail contains an image, e-mail software would fetch the image from a server operated by the mail sender. Now, instead, images will be served by "Google's own secure proxy servers."</p><p>At Ars Technica, Ron Amadeo suggested this would disrupt e-mail marketers ability to measure "open rates," the fraction of recipients who have read an e-mail:</p><p>E-mail marketers will no longer be able to get any information from imagesthey will see a single request from Google, which will then be used to send the image out to all Gmail users. Unless you click on a link, marketers will have no idea the e-mail has been seen.</p><p>But that doesn't seem to be the case for all marketers. In a blog post, e-mail marketing service Mail Chip, noted that they (and most e-mail marketers) track opens by placing "placing a tiny, single-pixel-sized image in each email," so the system would allow them track the first open, but perhaps not repeat opens by subscriber.</p><p><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/12/12/no-gmails-tweak-wont-stop-e-mail-marketers-from-knowing-if-you-open-their-email/">Keep reading...</a></p>