More Graphics Trouble: Yahoo! Mail Beta Blocks Images

In a move that will further hamper marketers’ ability to get their e-mail delivered with images intact, Yahoo! has begun blocking them by default in its Yahoo! Mail beta program.

The decision makes the Web portal the latest in a series of major e-mail inbox providers to turn its default setting for external images to “off.”

AOL versions 8.0 and 9.0, Google’s Gmail, and Microsoft’s Hotmail and Windows Live also block external images by default, as do the latest two versions of Microsoft Outlook—2003 and 2007—and Outlook Express.

Images from external sources remain on by default for AOL users who access their e-mail using AOL.com or AIM.com.

Yahoo!’s default-off setting applies only to the Yahoo! Mail beta program, according to the company. External images are still delivered intact by default in Yahoo!’s classic e-mail service.

It is unclear whether Yahoo! switches the default image settings to “off” in e-mail accounts that are migrated from its classic service to Yahoo! Mail beta. Yahoo! did not respond to an e-mail asking for clarification by deadline.

In any case, subscribers to e-mail services that block graphics by default can always switch them back on.

But, it is impossible to know exactly how prevalent image blocking is.

And as a result of ISPs increasingly turning their default image settings to off—along with Microsoft’s Windows Live e-mail and Yahoo! Mail beta offering preview panes—e-mail marketers must increasingly prepare for people to judge their messages based mainly on the “from” line, the “subject” line, and what appears in the top few inches of the body the e-mail.

“You need to design your e-mail recognizing that that first view is an important view, and that it might not show your images,” said Deirdre Baird, chief executive of e-mail deliverability consultancy Pivotal Veracity. “You need to ensure that your brand’s integrity and your main calls to action are not 100% reliant on images for those messages to be conveyed.”

As for “from” and “subject” lines, Baird said: “People do get a lot of spam and you want to make sure that the people who have opted into receive your e-mail know it’s from you.”

According to a recent survey by e-mail deliverability company Return Path, 55.9% of respondents cited knowing and trusting the sender as the primary reason they’ll open an e-mail, making familiarity and trust their No. 1 consideration.

Also, 51.2% cited previously opening an e-mail from the sender and finding it valuable as a top reason for opening a message, making the marketer’s previous behavior the No.2 consideration.

A Yahoo! spokeswoman said the company is blocking images in its Mail beta service by default to protect subscribers. Spammers have increasingly been delivering viruses using images. They have also been using images to get past spam filters.

“To better protect our users, we have set the default image blocking setting for Yahoo! Mail beta users to ‘block images unless the e-mail is from somebody in the contacts list or a [transactional message sent by a Goodmail] certified sender,’” said the spokeswoman in an e-mail. “When images are blocked, users will see a message at the top of the e-mail saying that images were blocked, and a big button they can click in order to show images. At any time, users can switch this to ‘always show images except in my spam folder’ or ‘block all images.’”

Some industry experts believe service providers are also blocking images to save on server space.

Yahoo! has 249 million unique e-mail users per month worldwide and 79 million in the U.S., according to comScore. Yahoo! declined to disclose how many e-mail users it has or how quickly they are migrating to the its Yahoo! Mail beta service.