load image from server when user opens an email

[Rahul Ba]

I wanted to load image from server when user opens an email. This is because I want to track users who reads an email.
Now, my query here is how to load image from server and and send some parameters.

[Paul Clapham]

You just send HTML as the e-mail body and include an ordinary tag which loads the image. The URL can of course include parameters.

Probably you'll want to have a servlet return the image, so it can take the parameters and store them in your user-tracking database.

Hopefully that covers the question, but don't hesitate to ask more if it doesn't.

(By the way when I told my wife that companies track people's e-mail that way she was repulsed and described it as "creepy".)

[Tim Moores]

Most email clients won't load the images by default, though, and the user may not force it to. (I know I never do.) So there's no guarantee that the servlet will be triggered.

[Norm Radder]

@Paul You need to explain the real world to your wife.  There are too many bad guys putting things  on the web where a wrong click can load malware.