[prutschman]

> Good open rate data gathering results in you not knowing that it's being tracked

At some level you know that people react badly when they know they're being tracked, so it's important to help ensure they are not aware of the tracking.

> Having said all of this: of course I don't allow images to display by default on my email provider. But I'm privacy minded and most people aren't. Which is fine, the world is diverse and that's a good thing. I love choice.

You don't like being tracked. You make a living tracking others, or helping others to do so. You think it's important to not let people discover that they're being tracked. Then you rationalize it as people making the "choice" to be tracked.

There may be an internally consistent case to be made that this is above board and ethical, but you haven't made it.