Yes, this is why proper clients disable remote content by default. This technique has been used by spammers for ages. Surprisingly, the iOS Mail app fetches remote content by default - I had to turn that off.
As the article mentions, images aren't the only problem here. I haven't allowed images in email for ages, but I'm still pretty concerned about tracking through other means.
In pretty much every automatically generated email I receive, links direct me through some sort of click-tracking system. There is rarely a direct link to a website, and an adblocker is of limited use since much of the information is sent via the link URL.
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https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10595666
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10590303 (deleted)
In pretty much every automatically generated email I receive, links direct me through some sort of click-tracking system. There is rarely a direct link to a website, and an adblocker is of limited use since much of the information is sent via the link URL.