AWS SES SNS Event Publishing: Getting duplicate notifications for Open events

Question

I've been using AWS SES event publishing to collect and see email metrics in an external project. I noticed that the open rate is unusually high. After analyzing multiple events, i noticed that there are open events with messageId that does not have a corresponding Send or Delivery event. Plus, these open events are very similar to other open events, in timestamp and source IP, however, these values are never the same. I am certain these are duplicates of some kind because the messageIds don't have a previous event (Send or Delivery). I have no idea how this is happening. I could deduplicate these events assuming Open events need a previous Send and Delivery events, but I don't think this should be done on my side and I should not be receiving these kind of duplicate events with different attributes.

Manas · Answer

The tracking of events such as open dependent upon the recipient's Email Service Provider and their privacy settings. These settings are beyond the control for Amazon SES.

A transparent GIF image measuring 1 pixel by 1 pixel is embedded in each email sent through Amazon SES and includes a unique reference to this image file. When the recipient email client opens the email, the image will get auto-downloaded, SES can tell exactly which message was opened and by whom.

When a recipient opens an email more than once, each instance of opening the email will count as a distinct and separate open event. In that case, you will receive duplicate open events.

AWS SES SNS Event Publishing: Getting duplicate notifications for Open events

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