Email Tracking and US Privacy Laws: What to Know

Unlike Europe, the United States has no single privacy law. Instead, a growing number of states have their own, California's being the best known. Here is how they relate to email open tracking in one-to-one business email, and the habits that keep you on the right side of them. This is general information, not legal advice.

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A patchwork of state laws

Several states now have comprehensive privacy laws, starting with California. Most of them apply to businesses above certain thresholds of revenue or of data processed, and they give people rights over the personal information collected about them: to know, to delete, and often to opt out of certain uses.

What open tracking collects

Open tracking records that an email was opened and when, and click tracking records which link was clicked. That is personal information about the recipient, even if it is modest. The question is less whether you may collect it than how you use and protect it. What we store, and what we never see, is detailed in what we store and what we never see.

Good practice

• Use it for your own follow-up, not to build profiles or sell data.
• Honour requests. If someone asks you to stop tracking or to delete their data, do it; see when a client asks you to stop tracking.
• Mention it in your privacy policy if you send business email at scale.
• Keep tracking to one-to-one business email. Marketing campaigns have their own rules, such as CAN-SPAM for commercial email.

Compared with Europe

European rules are stricter on consent for tracking technologies. If you also email people in Europe, the safest approach is the stricter standard; see is email tracking legal under GDPR.

Conclusion

For a salesperson or a freelancer tracking their own emails, the practical rules are simple: use the data only to follow up well, protect it, and honour any request to stop. When in doubt about your situation, ask a lawyer.

Frequently asked questions

Is email open tracking legal in the US?

There is no general ban on it. State privacy laws regulate how personal information is collected and used, so use it transparently and for legitimate purposes.

Does CAN-SPAM forbid tracking?

No. CAN-SPAM sets rules for commercial email, such as an unsubscribe link and an accurate sender, not for open tracking itself.

Where is mailcheck data stored?

Our policy page explains what is stored and where. We never read the content of your emails.

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