Your Privacy: EMail message open and link trackingIndex
An Apology for December 2024Index
First, an apology.
The first ORCJ 2025 broadcast email we sent to you in December 2024 was
full of hidden web email tracking links, sometimes called web bugs or
web beacons. These hidden
tracking links sent tracking information that identified you by name
and email address to a USA EMail marketing corporation MailerLite.com
every time you opened the message to read it. Tracking information
identifying you was also sent to them every time you clicked on one of
the links inside that EMail message.
While many, many (most?) organizations use third-party email marketing corporations that send you messages with hidden tracking links like this in them to judge the effectiveness of their marketing campaigns, we here at ORCJ strive for a higher standard of prior informed consent. You did not authorize us to track your email reading this way when you gave us your email address, and we apologize for having done it without your consent.
You also did not give us permission to give your name and email address
to any third-party USA-based email marketing corporation. It’s too late
to undo that, but see below for how to opt out of our mailing list
and even get your name fully removed from MailerLite.
We won’t send you any more messages that track your EMail reading unless we first ask for your prior informed consent to do so, and we have no plans to do so. Your email reading is private.
Going Forward: Our use of MailerLite.comIndex
Summary: To manage our mailing list and the sending of ORCJ messages, we outsource everything to a USA email marketing corporation located at MailerLite.com. If you are on our mailing list, we send your name and email address to
MailerLite.comand they will handle your mailing list subscription (and un-subscription) for us. This document explains what risks there might be to you if your name and email address are on our USA-based mailing list.Even though most other organizations outsource their email to third-party email marketing corporations in exactly this way, they usually do it without asking your permission or telling you about it. We here at ORCJ strive for a higher standard of informed consent.
Previous years
In previous years, ORCJ sent out ORCJ announcements using Charlie’s private Gmail account. This had its downsides:
There was no once-and-done unsubscribe button. People would request to be unsubscribed with an emailed request and then through human error would either not be unsubscribed or they would be unsubscribed and later resubscribed.
Gmail only allowed so many emails at a time, and so we would have to split our big email list into multiple smaller batches. As a consequence, we were at risk of violating Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation and best practices.
Switching to MailerLite for 2025
For the 2025 ORCJ, we switched to using MailerLite, a USA-based email marketing company, to manage subscriptions and send out the ORCJ announcements. Using this service gave ORCJ these features:
Every email message you get has an effective Unsubscribe link at the bottom that doesn’t require human intervention on our part. In at least the most common email reader Gmail, the Unsubscribe is even duplicated at the top of the message.
Bulk email sends are now gently paced to not overwhelm other mail systems. This makes it less likely that ORCJ announcements will end up in your spam folder.
Concerns with third-party email marketing corporations
There are some concerns with giving all the ORCJ names and email addresses to a third-party, USA-based email marketing service such as MailerLite:
MailerLite is a USA-based email marketing company. Anyone receiving ORCJ email from us will have their name and email address stored in the USA at a USA email marketing company. This is not entirely without risk, since the mailing lists of USA corporations are available to the USA government upon demand, and you may not want your name and email on file there (along with everyone else on the same mailing list).
MailerLite defaults to tracking all mail message opens and every link click inside the messages. We have turned almost all of that off for future messages. The Unsubscribe button will track you (as it must), as will the Sent by MailerLite advertising link that can’t be disabled in the free version. All other links will not track.
ORCJ 2025 will use MailerLite
We will be using the USA-based MailerLite to send out ORCJ announcements (instead of using a personal Gmail account), but with tracking minimized. Here’s what we’ve done here at ORCJ:
We have turned off the tracking of if/when you open ORCJ email messages. No open tracking information is sent to MailerLite when you open our message to read it.
We have stopped incorporating most clickable links in our email messages, because MailerLite has no option to disable link tracking. We have reverted to using “plain text” URLs in the messages. Many email readers such as Gmail will turn “plain text” URLs into clickable links without any tracking attached.
The two exceptions to “no tracking” are at the bottom of every message: (1) the Unsubscribe link that has to identify you to MailerLite to unsubscribe you, and (2) the Sent by MailerLite advertising link that can’t be disabled in the free version. Both those links will send tracking information to
MailerLiteif you click on them.
Opting out of our mailing list and MailerLiteIndex
You can opt-out of our ORCJ mailing list, and have us remove your name
and email address from the MailerLite email marketing corporation.
You can ask us to have MailerLite completely remove your name and email address from their USA company within 30 days by either sending us an email request or calling Charlie at 416-427-2177 and leaving a voice message, any time of day or night.
(Unnecessary detail: If you use the Unsubscribe button in one of our messages, then MailerLite will stop sending you our email messages, but it will continue to purposely remember all your contact details and email history in the USA. You have to contact us to have us tell MailerLite to delete your account entirely.)
If you do decide to opt-out of our MailerLite email messages, we might have an alternative for you. See the next section.
Receiving ORCJ messages in alternate waysIndex
If you contact us to ask us to remove you completely from the MailerLite USA email marketing corporation, please let us know if you are severing all contact with ORCJ (no more email, ever), or if you would still like to receive ORCJ announcements, just not via MailerLite.
We may or may not try to keep a separate list of people and send them individual non-tracked email announcements using manual methods.
We could do it the old way, using Gmail (alas, also a USA-based email service). While Gmail does not track messages using hidden links, your name and address will of course be stored and remembered by Google USA (instead of by MailerLite). Google offers no option to have your name and email address completely removed from its servers. (If we sent you ORCJ email in prior years, you are already remembered somewhere in Google’s servers. Sorry.)
We could send you messages using a non-Gmail email service that does not remember or track your email address, e.g. through a private ISP.
Let us know what you would prefer, if you don’t like MailerLite but
want us to stay in touch by email. We make no guarantees about whether
we will still able to send you ORCJ updates if you opt out of the regular
MailerLite email list, but we will consider it.
If you really don’t care about privacy or security, you can follow ORCJ on the facebook and/or you can follow the ORCJ 2025 event on the facebook. We will post updates there.
