So since Apple Mail added the ability to show contact photos in the mailbox message listing, I’ve noticed that some messages from places I don’t have any contact entry for have started showing up with custom icons. Examples include Target, Amazon, and even TidBITS. My question is, how are these icons getting loaded? Is there some internal database? Can senders include an icon? Are they linked externally somehow? It’s the last possibility that worries me since just like embedded graphics and such those could be used to track activity and when I’ve even just looked at a message listing. I’ve got things set to not download any remote content unless asked for, but I’m not sure how these icons fit into the equation at all. If there is something getting downloaded automatically then that seems like a big privacy hole to me.
I tried taking a look at the raw source for a message but didn’t see anything that jumped out at me.
If you are syncing (or have synced) contacts with Google, Outlook, etc. via the “Internet Accounts” function, they may be coming from one of those sources.
Another possibility is the relatively new “BIMI” (Brand Indicators for Message Identification) specification for email authentication. If an email passes certain verification measures and there is a link to a validated logo in the sender’s DNS record, then the logo may appear as a visual cue in certain email programs.
FWIW, BIMI strikes me more as a marketing ploy than a serious email validation tool.
Thanks for the reply! I also thought about favicons, but I don’t think that’s the case because at least in some cases the icon that’s shown doesn’t match the favicon for the site. For example, here’s the Amazon favicon:
Here’s the contact photo icon that’s shown for mail from Amazon in the iPad and iPhone Mail app:
Thanks for the reply! I definitely know it’s not something from any contact. I sync contacts across devices only with iCloud, and I don’t have any contact entries for the companies where the logos are showing up.
The BIMI thing is interesting; I hadn’t read much about that yet, so thanks as well for the educational tip! However, I don’t think this is the source either. Looking at Amazon, specifically, the BIMI hostname is this:
In my recollection of the announcement of this feature at WWDC last year, Apple said it would use contact photos from your contacts (which can also be set by the user to share, which would come from iMessage/iCloud if I remember correctly), and for brands it was said that brands that participate in Apple’s business connect program already offer brand logo images, so that’s what would show. Apple may not have said this in the keynote, but I may have read this from someone who reported after the fact.
That said, I do wonder if Apple is also using BIMI, because the Amazon logo that you are showing is pretty much what shows in the contact photo, just with a colored background. (Mine is the same - the Amazon smile logo with an orange background.)
Hmmm…yes, Branded Mail in the Apple Business Connect program does indeed sound intriguing. Thanks for the pointer!
I really don’t think BIMI is involved, because Target doesn’t have a BIMI DNS record, and even Apple’s BIMI logo doesn’t match what’s in the Mail app. I guess here’s a question for the TidBITS folks - has TidBITS signed up for the Apple Business Connect stuff and branded mail program? Because I definitely see a TidBITS logo in the Mail app.
Well that is good supporting evidence. At this point I’m pretty comfortable with the hypothesis of this being the source of the icons, and I’m also assuming they are coming from Apple servers, so for now I’m not going to worry much about the privacy/tracking aspects. Thanks again to everyone!!
The whole process of setting icons for your contacts, and the “Contact Photo and Poster” is so broken. Whenever I select a photo of a friend to put as their Contact Photo and Poster, any time I zoom and “edit” the photo, Contacts app reverts the photo back to its original state. In order to get Contact photos to what you may want, you almost have to take the photo to an external editor first and then set it as the persons contact image. Have had nothing but issues with it.
