Disclosed is a policy based method for blocking the automatic
dereferencing of web beacon links in an e-mail message sent in HTML
format with a minimum sacrifice in the HTML body rendering quality. HTML
content that potentially contains web beacons is replaced with
non-dereferencing elements prior to HTML rendering by the e-mail browser
so that the remaining HTML can be rendered as complete as possible
without rendering the potential web beacons. Additionally, the present
invention also provides a method for removing the HTTP Referer header
from referenced external links and activated images. An HTTP redirector
service is implemented as a server-based link redirection evaluator
application which serves to eliminate the Referer header for the URL
requested. Embodiments of the present invention provide for blocking web
beacons and removing HTTP Referer headers in both a "down-level" e-mail
client and a client which can make programmatic use of an HTML rendering
engine.
