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What is the difference between a tracking pixel and a cookie?

This information is general and concerns the features of HawkOpen (TriStiX S.L.). It is not individual legal advice or an assessment of whether a specific campaign or document complies with the law. Customers make their own decisions about their activities and, where needed, consult a qualified specialist. This does not limit any rights they have under mandatory law. Last reviewed: November 11, 2026.

A cookie is a small file a website stores in your browser and reads again later. A tracking pixel stores nothing: it is an image whose download is recorded by the server that hosts it. HawkOpen’s tracking image and tracked links set no cookies.

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A cookie can recognise the same browser across many visits and websites. A pixel in an email works differently: the address of the image is unique to one recipient’s copy, so the request itself says which message was opened. HawkOpen records the time and technical details of that request and gives it a category.

For the law, the difference is smaller than it looks. The legal analysis HawkOpen works from notes that, according to the European Data Protection Board’s guidelines on the technical scope of the ePrivacy rules, a tracked link or a solution without cookies is not automatically outside the assessment of tracking technologies. In a 2014 report, the Spanish data protection authority also treated pixels in advertising emails as needing prior consent. Not using cookies therefore does not by itself settle whether consent or information is needed.

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Related questions

More in this topic

  • What is email tracking and how does it work?

    Email tracking adds an invisible image and redirected links to the message you send, and records when the image is loaded or a link is clicked. HawkOpen also checks each event against named rules to tell likely human activity from a privacy proxy or a scanner.

  • How do I track email opens?

    Create a HawkOpen account and connect your mailbox. Open tracking works only after your company’s owner or an administrator switches it on, and only for recipients whose consent to open tracking is recorded; then send from the extension in Gmail, Outlook on the web or Yahoo Mail, or from the HawkOpen dashboard. Open tracking is included in the free plan without a limit on opens.

  • How do I track sent emails and replies?

    For each email sent through HawkOpen you see its sending state and, on the Pro and Business plans, replies; for recipients whose copy is tracked (your company switched tracking on and their consent is recorded) you also see image loads and link clicks. Each open and click carries a category; notifications come for replies and fired alerts, not for a single open or click.

  • How can I prove that an email was sent or received?

    HawkOpen records when the sending server accepted your message, whether it bounced, and later image loads, clicks and replies, each with a time. That is a useful trail, but HawkOpen is not a registered email or qualified electronic delivery service.

  • Can you track an email after it has been sent?

    No. Tracking works only for emails sent through HawkOpen, because the tracking image and tracked links are added to each copy before it leaves. An email already sent without them cannot be tracked afterwards.

  • Can I generate an email tracking pixel myself?

    HawkOpen has no standalone pixel generator. It creates a separate tracking image for each recipient when it sends the email, and only then can it link an image load to that person and classify it.

  • What is individual-delivery attribution?

    It means every recipient gets their own copy of the email, with their own tracking image and links, so an event can be tied to that one recipient. One message to several people in To or Cc cannot tell them apart.

  • What is a Meta, Facebook or conversion tracking pixel, and is it the same as an email pixel?

    No. An advertising pixel is code on a website that reports visits and purchases to an ad platform. An email tracking pixel is a tiny image inside one email that reports when that image is loaded. HawkOpen works only with email.

  • What counts as certain evidence in HawkOpen?

    Only something the recipient did themselves, such as a reply. Opens and clicks are assessments of “possible” or “likely”, never certain, because machines can trigger them too.

  • What does HawkOpen not do or not promise?

    HawkOpen does not prove that an email was read, does not show where a person is beyond the country of the network, does not track emails sent without it, and its e-signature is a simple, not a qualified one.

  • What exactly does HawkOpen record about a sent email?

    For each recipient: the delivery status and, on Pro and Business, replies; in a tracked copy also every request for the tracking image and every click on a tracked link. Each event has a time, a category, a confidence and the rule codes behind it.

  • What is HawkOpen and who makes it?

    HawkOpen is an app for tracking the emails you send: it records image loads, link clicks and replies and explains each with a category and rule codes. It is made by TriStiX S.L., a company in Spain.

  • Can I send a registered or certified email with HawkOpen?

    No. HawkOpen is not a registered or certified delivery service such as Italian PEC or an electronic registered mail provider. It sends ordinary email and shows its delivery status and signals.

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