France and Italy are the first EU countries to issue concrete guidelines on the use of tracking pixels in emails. These are not new rules. But it is the first time anyone has written them down in detail – and it requires changes for every company sending emails to those countries.
13. juli 2026
NOTE! This blog post should be regarded purely as general information and not as legal guidance. For specific legal guidance you should contact a legal adviser.
The requirement for consent to track opens and clicks in emails is not new. It has followed from the ePrivacy Directive since 2009 and the GDPR since 2018.
Practice has been the same for many years in most European countries:
One combined checkbox at newsletter sign-up, with a reference to the privacy policy that explicitly states that activity in emails is tracked – including details of what is recorded and what it is used for.
That has worked. The data protection authorities have accepted it. And it remains the starting point in most European countries.
But new guidance from the French CNIL and the Italian Garante now changes that:
In both France and Italy, companies must now make it possible for email recipients to withdraw consent to the measurement of email opens without unsubscribing entirely.
In both countries it is specifically defined that there must be two separate links in the emails sent – one to unsubscribe from emails and one to opt out of tracking in emails.
In both countries this option must be specifically described in the terms accepted at sign-up.
If consent to measuring email opens is to be given via the same checkbox as the newsletter sign-up, France requires specific information that the consent is used to personalise the content, while this is not specified in the Italian guidance.
This explanation assumes that your consents were collected lawfully before the new clarifications too – that is, that all your recipients specifically accepted tracking in emails.
The consent text in the terms must be adjusted so that it is clear recipients can opt out of tracking in emails without unsubscribing.
Your legal adviser must assess whether an amended consent text specifying "personalisation" as the purpose is enough for you to make do with one combined checkbox, or whether you have to let recipients tick two non-pre-filled checkboxes at sign-up in order to satisfy the French authorities.
You must change your email templates so the new requirements can be met – at minimum, so that the tracking pixel measuring email opens can be disabled for every contact who has opted out of tracking. And so that this takes effect for emails already delivered before the withdrawal as well.
Here are direct links to the official guidance:
(The page also carries an official English translation as a PDF)
Guidance from the Italian Garante
If you are in any doubt about whether your consents have been valid until now – in light of the new clarifications – you should contact a legal adviser to make sure you comply with all relevant rules, laws and guidance.
The new French guidance specifically notes that it has only addressed the "tracking pixel" that measures email opens.
At the same time they note that the need for consent is determined by the purpose and not the technology.
At Yulsn we have chosen to treat tracking of opens and clicks alike, even though there are currently only precise guidelines for tracking opens.
We do that partly because it is our interpretation that the authorities consider it the right thing. But just as much because it would make no sense to recipients to treat the two things separately:
For a recipient it makes – in our view – no sense to say no to measuring whether an email has been opened, but yes to measuring which links are clicked.
In the solution we offer our customers, recipients will be able to opt out of "Tracking in emails" both at sign-up and on an ongoing basis in each email, covering the measurement of both opens and clicks.
Opting out of tracking in emails therefore also applies retroactively to both opens and clicks.
Beyond individual recipients being able to control these consents themselves, our customers will also be able to disable tracking at email level – so they can switch tracking off entirely for selected campaigns or trigger emails.
This is in addition to our older option of disabling tracking on individual links.