Last month, the media site OZY was shuttered following a scandal involving its founder, Carlos Watson. Prosecutors stated that Watson had “engaged in a scheme to defraud Ozy’s potential investors, potential acquirers, lenders and potential lenders” by inflating the site’s audience statistics and financial records.
One unintended consequence is that emails sitting in inboxes across the world no longer have images. Links stored on OZY’s servers, no longer operational, all lose the ability to display in an email message. And, thus, all we’re left with is text.
This happens because when an email is sent, the images are not actually sent with the message. Instead, the images are stored and linked to the email, so when the message is opened, the images are retrieved from the server and displayed. When the server is no longer operational, the images cannot be retrieved, leaving only the text of the message.
It’s just one of those causal relationships that you may not otherwise think about.
Michael's Musings 