Contact images and color chips from company promotional emails

[tessmctessy]

Hi,
I've noticed that a different client, with promotional stuff from companies it will often have their logos for the contact images instead of color chips even if they're not in my contacts (I really have no desire to put these companies in my contact).   Is that something companies send with their emails and can be turned on in Aqua Mail? 

[Kostya Vasilyev]

TypeMail, yep.

No such thing in AquaMail, staying out of it because of possible legal issues.

The screenshots I've seen (yes, I've had questions about it already) had images identifying Amazon, PayPal, eBay, etc.

I believe those images are not "free for all to use as they see fit" -- they may be trademarked ("trade dress" ?), may require a special permission to use, etc.

And I just don't happen to have an lawyer I could ask to go and find out the details and sign the necessary agreements if necessary, all that fun stuff.

But I do know that Google is often very "trigger happy" blocking apps in Play for legal violations (real or perceived, it doesn't matter really).

So with all of that in mind, I'd rather play it safe.

[tessmctessy]

That makes a lot of sense, thanks for the information.  I opted to just create a big spam contact group and make it so Android NEVER displays it.  Works just as good, and I get to pick their images. 

[Shoey5]

Sorry to bring this thread alive after so long but did a search as I was going to ask the same question. I've recently switched to AquaMail from TypeApp and I love everything about AquaMail! Only thing I miss is TypeApp's ability to display contact images for senders not in my address book.

Kostya, Besides the fact that it's been years since this initial post (should ease your concerns) there are ways to do this right to avoid any legal worries. I see two options


1. Ideally, you could simply look up favicons from the senders site and cache the images. This wouldn't be a legal issue as the images is being used for it's intended purpose, that's what browsers do when you bookmark sites. Google even offers it in their search functionality

http://w w w . g o o g l e . c o m/s2/favicons?domain=w w w . a q u a m a i l . c o m


Besides it simply looking cool, one added benefit is the ability to easily identify phishing emails that pass through email filters through contact images. Example, if I get an email from paypal-accounts@bobshotsouce.c o m, I'm going to see a different contact image before I even open the email. I'm sure PayPal would appreciate that

2. Not as ideal but you could have a directory where users could dump their own images to override contact images. ie if an image called paypal.com.png exists in that directory, use that.

[StR]

2. Not as ideal but you could have a directory where users could dump their own images to override
contact images. ie if an image called paypal.com.png exists in that directory, use that.

As a workaround for that, you can create contacts with the desired image. I believe in that case Aquamail should be able to pull that image from Contacts. And typically the companies use 1-3 "From" addresses for "technical" e-mails (notifications, etc.) and targeted marketing. You might be even able to create a single entry for a company and several e-mail addresses in one.



And just a comment on this statement:

Besides it simply looking cool, one added benefit is the ability to easily identify phishing emails that pass through email filters through contact images. Example, if I get an email from paypal-accounts@bobshotsouce.c o m, I'm going to see a different contact image before I even open the email. I'm sure PayPal would appreciate that

If the "From" address is spoofed (as it frequently happens with SPAM and SCAM messages) and appears as, say, support@paypal.com or noreply@paypal.com, but the links are going to a phishing site, then the favicon image might give the user a false sense of security.

[Shoey5]

As a workaround for that, you can create contacts with the desired image.

Not ideal as the purpose is to avoid adding contacts to your address book. ie, dont' want or need to have PayPal in my address book.

If the "From" address is spoofed (as it frequently happens with SPAM and SCAM messages) and appears as, say, support@paypalcom or noreply@paypalcom, but the links are going to a phishing site, then the favicon image might give the user a false sense of security.

Of course it always takes a bit of common sense, worked for me with TypeApp. I prefer this feature for for the logo itself and that would be fine....though there are always other places in the email to do the lookup

DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; q=dns/txt; c=relaxed/simple;
   s=wcf3vcblahblahblahlefhl2a32; d=amazon.ca; t=1439491339;
   h=From:Reply-To:To:Message-ID:Subject:MIME-Version:Content