[josephers]

I used to "open" marketing emails for fractions of a second while browsing my inbox with keyboard shortcuts. I go to the next email, and if it's a marketing email, I move to the next email.

But with the Promotions tab, I check the titles, and if they're not interesting, I mark them together as read without opening it.

So, my reading behaviour hasn't changed even though tracking my open rate with tracking pixels will now show different results. If it's an interesting email, I'll read it. If not, I won't.

[JohnTHaller]

If you didn't have 'show remote images' on, there's no difference as it wouldn't count as an open. And it's off by default for all senders in gmail and every other worthwhile webmail provider.