October 29, 2026 was the deadline set by the Italian Data Protection Authority for complying with its guidelines on the use of tracking pixels in email communications. The guidance applies, among others, to newsletter operators and email delivery platforms.
For this reason, I changed the phpList configuration and disabled ALWAYS_ADD_USERTRACK and CLICKTRACK.
In our case, we are not equipped to collect and manage users’ choices about tracking email opens and link clicks appropriately. I therefore decided to stop collecting these statistics rather than continue without being able to handle users’ preferences properly.
Aggregate statistics - for example, how many people opened a campaign or clicked a particular link - could be useful. However, displaying only a total does not automatically make the data anonymous. The underlying data and the way they are collected must also prevent individual recipients from being identified. Pseudonymized data, or data linked to identifiers that can be associated with subscribers, are still personal data and are not the same as anonymous data.
The phpList documentation describes open and click tracking and the relevant configuration options, but I have not found information about a built-in mode that collects only aggregate statistics without retaining details of individual interactions.
It would be useful for phpList to consider adding such a feature: one that shows the overall performance of a campaign without recording which specific users opened it or clicked a link.
Thanks.