Email Privacy, Ethics and Podcasts 🎧
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Since the last email, Apple announced iOS 15. Interestingly, Apple have taken a move against tracking pixels in Mail:
Mail Privacy Protection helps protect your privacy by preventing email senders from learning information about your Mail activity. If you choose to turn it on, it hides your IP address so senders can’t link it to your other online activity or determine your location. And it prevents senders from seeing if you’ve opened their email.
This is a great step forward, though it would be nice to see this turned off by default.
If large email providers take actions to protect users, open rates will become redundant, which has to be a good thing.
Absorbing
Interesting links from the web.
Facebook and Google aren’t the partners you want
This fantastic thread from Rand Fishkin explains why we shouldn’t rely on Facebook and Google for marketing. Lots of great examples here and the context makes it more interesting: it’s an excerpt from a talk, cancelled because of its criticism of Facebook and Google.
The Ethical Move
The Ethical Move encourages business owners to think long-term and invest in ethical marketing over quick wins. Scruples has taken the pledge and we’ve written about the other ethical stances we’re taking.
Open rates don’t matter
Written in 2017, this prescient piece from email guru Val Geisler outlines why click rates are the true email metric.
DIFTK wins Best Business podcast award
Huge congrats to Frankie and Steve who run this wonderful podcast for freelance parents. They won the Bronze award last year but have now taken Gold 🥇
We Don’t Stream podcast
I recently had a chat with James Mullarkey from the We Don’t Stream podcast. We talked all things spy pixels, privacy in marketing and a bit on Scruples, too.
You can check out the episode on the We Don’t Stream website, or subscribe via RSS. James has chatted to some really interesting people on his podcast, so it was an honour to be asked. 🙏
Scruples
Colin and I have been working on some interesting projects with Scruples. We’ve given the site a fresh lick of paint to explain more about our principles.
We’re also offering Simple Sites: custom websites for projects with limited features.
Unoffice Hours
I’ve moved my Unoffice Hours to Wednesday afternoons (3pm – 4.30pm GMT). That better fits my schedule and opens up the possibility for folks on the other side of the Atlantic to book a call.
I’ve been really enjoying these chats: no agenda or email needed ahead of time, just book a slot and turn up.
If you have related links that might be of interest, or thoughts on any of these topics, I’d love to hear from you: just hit reply.
Until next time,
Dave