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.

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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