We know companies track us. Our phone is always listening, we haven’t even shared our next purchase with our friend and we’re already seeing the thing in ads.

Spoiler alert: algorithms are smart. They have the history of your Google searches, your watched Amazon products. They also know if you opened an email or not; have you ever received this friendly email of “Hey, we noticed you haven’t interacted with our emails in a while!”? They know.

Well, whether you want to be tracked or not, I just want to give you the tools to choose to take action or not.

tl;dr. Remove everything to the right of ? from your URLs

Uniform Resource Locators

We know these as links, references or URLs, they are pretty common actually. They are unique identifiers for Internet resources like websites, videos and pictures. Everything in the web is reached through a URL.

Structure

A URL has a very simple structure. Let me break down the next example URL:

https://www.example.com/path/to/page?parameter1=value1&parameter2=value2

• https — Protocol (secure HyperText Transfer Protocol)
• www.example.com — Domain
• /path/to/page — Path
• ? — Query string separator
• parameter1=value1&parameter2=value2 — Query parameters

The query string is everything after the ? and before any #. This is where websites attach metadata to links.

Tracking Parameters

Companies attach tracking parameters to URLs so they can track where clicks come from, which email campaign worked, which user clicked, etc.

Example tracking parameters in a URL:

https://example.com/product?utm_source=email&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=summer_sale&utm_content=button_cta

Breaking this down:

• utm_source=email — Traffic source
• utm_medium=newsletter — Medium type
• utm_campaign=summer_sale — Campaign name
• utm_content=button_cta — Specific content identifier

Every time you click this link, the company logs: which email list you’re on, which version of the email you received, which button you clicked, and which campaign you’re interested in. This builds a profile of you.

Email Tracking Pixels

Beyond URL parameters, companies use tracking pixels — tiny, invisible images embedded in emails. When your email client loads the image, the company’s server logs:

• That you opened the email
• When you opened it
• What device you used
• Your IP address (approximate location)
• Whether you opened it multiple times

This is why your email provider asks if you want to load images. Many spam and tracking emails rely on this.

How to Protect Yourself

1. Clean Your URLs

Before clicking a link from a promotional email, check the URL in your browser. Remove everything after and including the ?:

Before: https://shop.com/sale?utm_source=email&utm_medium=promo

After: https://shop.com/sale

2. Disable Image Loading in Email

Most email clients allow you to disable automatic image loading:

• Gmail: Settings → Advanced → Images → Ask before displaying images
• Outlook: File → Options → Trust Center → Automatic Download
• Apple Mail: Preferences → Viewing

3. Use Email Aliases

Create temporary or separate email addresses for shopping, newsletters, and promotions. This isolates tracking data.

4. Unsubscribe from Unwanted Lists

Click the unsubscribe link at the bottom of marketing emails (usually required by law). This reduces tracking emails overall.

5. Use Privacy-Focused Email Providers

Consider services like ProtonMail or Tutanota that don’t load images by default and encrypt your mail.

Conclusion

Companies will continue to track you. The goal is not privacy perfection (impossible), but rather conscious control over how much data you leak. Clean URLs, disable images, use aliases — small actions add up to better privacy.