CAP Talk

General Discussion => The Lobby => Topic started by: Eclipse on April 03, 2017, 10:01:51 PM

Title: NHQ using bmetrack in emails
Post by: Eclipse on April 03, 2017, 10:01:51 PM
Just an FYI to those who are privacy-minded, NHQ has been for a while / is using "Bmetrack" for analytics
on their emails.

This causes a lot of the links in their messages to fail for me presumably because of my adblocker(s), and the concierge site
at BME seems to be pretty pokey even when the links work, making a lot of clicks look broken.

So the next time you click a survey and spout off thinking you're anonymous, be aware you're probably not.

Read, heed, or don't care at your option.
Title: Re: NHQ using bmetrack in emails
Post by: SAREXinNY on April 03, 2017, 11:43:23 PM
Can you explain what this means to someone who doesn't know how to properly operate an iPod, iPad, and barely knows how to use apps on his phone?
Title: Re: NHQ using bmetrack in emails
Post by: Eclipse on April 04, 2017, 12:09:11 AM
The messages have unique identifiers to be able to tell who opened the message, and if they
configured it that way, how long you read it, what you read, etc. 

For example, the NESA email that just went out has links which are able to tell not just a person clicked, but who, specifically clicked.
(When they don't get trapped by a security program or BME's servers themselves).

I know that some people are inclined to "share opinions" thinking they are completing a survey anonymously,
when in fact, they are not.

The pilot survey sent out a month or so ago about POAs had similar tracking.

Not at all uncommon these days for marketing campaigns to do similar things - Constant Contact, Salesforce, Clearslide, among dozens of other
marketing and CRM apps do this routinely, not to mention TwitBook, FaceSpace, and Google, but an informed customer
>is< the product.

Google Docs has similar capabilities with Analytics.  It can be somewhat amusing to send out a memo with it enabled,
and be able to call out people for either not reading something at all, or clicking a doc for 5 seconds and moving on,
then they complain no one provided the information.

Such is the world we live in.

Title: Re: NHQ using bmetrack in emails
Post by: etodd on April 04, 2017, 01:25:22 AM
Quote from: Eclipse on April 04, 2017, 12:09:11 AM
The messages have unique identifiers to be able to tell who opened the message, and if they
configured it that way, how long you read it, what you read, etc. 

For example, the NESA email that just went out has links which are able to tell not just a person clicked, but who, specifically clicked.
(When they don't get trapped by a security program or BME's servers themselves).

I know that some people are inclined to "share opinions" thinking they are completing a survey anonymously,
when in fact, they are not.

The pilot survey sent out a month or so ago about POAs had similar tracking.

Not at all uncommon these days for marketing campaigns to do similar things - Constant Contact, Salesforce, Clearslide, among dozens of other
marketing and CRM apps do this routinely, not to mention TwitBook, FaceSpace, and Google, but an informed customer
>is< the product.

Google Docs has similar capabilities with Analytics.  It can be somewhat amusing to send out a memo with it enabled,
and be able to call out people for either not reading something at all, or clicking a doc for 5 seconds and moving on,
then they complain no one provided the information.

Such is the world we live in.

Some times with these sorts of things, I'll view source of the email and can find a link to the poll or survey and can leave off the last bit of url that has the code for recipient. Then open the url in a different browser I use for this where nothing is logged in and cookies turned off and history deleted.

YMMV
Title: Re: NHQ using bmetrack in emails
Post by: James Shaw on April 04, 2017, 12:08:42 PM
Quote from: Eclipse on April 03, 2017, 10:01:51 PM
Just an FYI to those who are privacy-minded, NHQ has been for a while / is using "Bmetrack" for analytics
on their emails.

This causes a lot of the links in their messages to fail for me presumably because of my adblocker(s), and the concierge site
at BME seems to be pretty pokey even when the links work, making a lot of clicks look broken.

So the next time you click a survey and spout off thinking you're anonymous, be aware you're probably not.

Read, heed, or don't care at your option.

I always assume that anything I do online can haunt or hurt me and that nothing is anonymous. Doesn't matter if it is CAP or work related. But I won't put anything online I am not willing to say in person.

I generally believe that surveys ask the warm and fuzzy questions and not the real questions that need to be addressed.