Google announced on Thursday that it would begin showing images automatically in Gmail. It has always hidden them until the user has told it to show them.

It has done it this way, the company says, as a precautionary measure for users aimed at protecting them from those who might try to use images to compromise security.

When Google made the announcement, there was some concern from the email marketing industry. The concern was reported in an Ars Technica article , which suggested that email marketers wouldn’t be able to get information from image actions.

TechCrunch has since reported, after talking to Google, that marketers who track open rates through images will still be able to do so, and that the data might even be more accurate now. User IP data, however, won’t be tracked.

With Google’s new method, Google serves all images through its own secure proxy servers.

The feature has already begun rolling out in Gmail on the desktop, and will come to the mobile apps early next year.

Image: Google