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I am using Microsoft Outlook 2013 on my desktop to access my Gmail account. Every time (and I mean every time) I click on an email in Outlook, I get a small window saying, "Microsoft Outlook Contacting://www.google-analytics.com" and after 15 seconds or so, another window saying "Microsoft Outlook Contacting://www.googletagmanager.com" I don't recall ever installing an add-on or other software that would cause it to do this.

I can cancel to stop the contacting of these sites, but when I do, Outlook is unresponsive for at least another 30 seconds. As you can imagine, checking email has become a nightmare. I just want to shut this off somehow. And when I say it contacts these sites, I really have no idea what it is doing. It doesn't open a website in my browser or anything else that I can see.

I have since realized that the problem is specific to emails sent from BlueHost.com. The problem occurs when I choose to allow images to show in the email. I assume this is allowing some code to run that contacts Google Analytics for tracking purposes. Unfortunately, it just crashes Outlook.

How can I address this?

Ben N
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CoryanDesign
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  • How are you setting up Outlook to access your Gmail account, be specific please. – mdpc Nov 11 '14 at 04:17
  • I access my gmail account through Outlook. I have had the email set up in Outlook for several months. I recently upgraded from Outlook 2010 to 2013. This problem started around the same time period, but I can't be sure it didn't happen just before making the switch. – CoryanDesign Nov 11 '14 at 04:25
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    Again, please answer exactly how this is setup, all the parameters used in the account. There are SEVERAL ways to do this and thus the question to help us debug and perhaps identify what the problem is with your setup. – mdpc Nov 11 '14 at 07:16

1 Answers1

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There is a solution to this, but try it only if you are OK with meddling with windows firewall. In the firewall advanced settings you can place rules as to which program has IN/OUT access to which port/protocol.

Now outlook fetches your mail using the IMap protocol, whereas the analytics site is accessed by your mail using http(s) protocols (ports 80 & 443).

So, you can achieve what you want by blocking access to outlook.exe on port 80 and 443. Of course, the downside of this is that you won't be able to access any web content on your mail, as web content requires http.(Though I'm sure you can specifically block analytics URL too. I don't remember how, I am currently on mobile)

UPDATE

You can block the program on HTTP(S) to a specific IP (as suggested by this answer: Blocking web sites with Windows Firewall).

The solution suggested by @Chipperyman is also good. By just making a small change in the hosts file, you can affect this change. In the linked answer you will find the details of how to use both methods.

Community
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Prahlad Yeri
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  • I would suggest modifying your HOSTS file instead as it will speed up your browser as well (albeit very slightly) and you can view all web content. – Jon Nov 13 '14 at 02:43
  • But in that case he will never be able to access analytics site from that machine, even using the browser. – Prahlad Yeri Nov 13 '14 at 02:46
  • Unless you are a webdev or need to access GA, blocking it will never harm you. I personally used block it on my machine because it speeds up web loading speeds (albeit slightly) and each page takes less bandwidth to load. I actually *am* (now) a webdev so I had to unblock it, but I had no issues blocking it before. – Jon Nov 13 '14 at 02:51
  • I do need to access GA as I use it for several websites. Based on the other "answer" below, it looks like it may be a problem with email from BlueHost, since they are the hosting/email service I use. – CoryanDesign Nov 14 '14 at 00:34
  • @Coryan - Yup, you will still be able to access GA after blocking this site in HOSTS file. Turns out, the site accessed by bluhost ("google-analytics.com") is just used for tracking. The actual site for signing into GA to read the stats is: https://www.google.com/analytics/web/ – Prahlad Yeri Nov 14 '14 at 17:37
  • I don't know wny, but a couple days ago this problem stopped occuring. I've tried to think of something I changed that caused it, but I really can't think of anything. Nonetheless, it's all good now. – CoryanDesign Nov 21 '14 at 13:00
  • In case anyone else encounters this problem. It appears to be directly related to email SENT by BlueHost. When I attempt to place BlueHost on the Safe Sender list so email images can be displayed, I get the "google-analytics" message. I've not solved the problem, but I have pinpointed where it is occurring. – CoryanDesign Nov 27 '14 at 20:48