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Can someone explain tracking pixels in layman's terms?

Jan 9, 2012 6:28 AM

I applied for a job a couple months ago and one of the terms of submitting an application was allowing them to install a tracking pixel. I got a letter saying that I was passed over for the job, so I'm trying to figure out how to get rid of it?

This got me thinking about what they were, how they worked and how common they were.

matt1976 matt1976

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Doesn't get much more layman than wikipedia. Interesting stuff. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_bug

rprebel rprebel
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eHow has a good explanation of how to use them: http://www.ehow.com/how_5277834_use-pixel-tracking.html
Maybe you can locate it with the info described in the article.

I personally think it is crappy they had this as part of their terms of application. If you are that bothered, call their HR dept and ask how to remove it.

mellielou mellielou
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Isn't that usually an image on a specific webpage that can be used as a hit counter? I'm not quite sure how you'd "install" one of those on a computer, unless it's a tracking program that they're calling a "pixel tracker". I dunno.

khellendros1984 khellendros1984
vote-for7vote-against

This makes no sense as stated so I'm guessing that they used the term "tracking pixel" for something else, as @khellendros1984 has also suggested.

It may be that they wanted you to be aware that they use web bugs in email messages sent to you (so that you could not later claim that they were spying on you without your knowledge).

baqui63 baqui63
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@baqui63: Probably this.

matt1976 matt1976
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Oh, my! I do believe this is more than I wanted to know. Think I'll go feed my "pair of noids", and then go stick my head in the sand. Sometimes ignorance is bliss. Other times, it'll get you pixeled. Or something. :-\

gmwhit gmwhit
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@matt1976: Now this is what I get for thinking I needed sleep. I missed all the fun. I believe that @baqui63 has it right (as do you, I see), but I'm still curious for more information.

When they sent emails, were they "rich text" (html stuffs, perhaps, or things with visible images)? Do you still have any of the emails? What is your email client that you use to read email with (outlook, perhaps the mail.app on the mac, or a web browser because you are using one of the free email providers like gmail, yahoo, or hotmail)?

To clean this, your quickest option is to move those emails to a folder where you won't access them, because each time you read them, the cookie is reset. Then you should clean out all your cookies. I actually block close to 98% of cookies that web sites try to set, and I seldom even read rich text emails (although I will pick up the phone and CALL the person sending them). Shrdlu has the hate for mime.

More later... still drinking coffee.

shrdlu shrdlu
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Many email programs (including web-based) will prevent the automatic display of images. 1x1 images are often used by spammers to detect when an email is read - if the email was read, it means it was sent to a valid email address, and therefore they can continue to spam that address. To protect users, email clients started blocking images unless you explicitly clicked a button to allow the images to display.

Chances are, the company that you were applying to uses this same method for determining whether an email was read and possibly to filter out spam replies, and was asking you to allow those images to be displayed. It doesn't involve the actual installation of anything. The only time something is sent to the company's servers is when you view the email, and probably contains information about your IP address, when you opened it, and potentially your email address.

My advice: delete the emails and move on.

javajulie javajulie

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