Testing I am doing is showing that this still happens. I am seeing MS365 emails marked as opened and clicked. Google marked as open. The MTA is obviously checking the email images and links, but other platforms where I test the same do not mark these as opens and clicks and successfully detect the user opening and clicking.

I understand that opens and clicks are not always going to be accurate... but in cases where you can tell it's the receiving MTA filtering system doing this, as other providers seem to be doing, then that would be something that should be possible.

I wonder if a delay is set and if an email is opened or clicked in less 1-2 mins from MTA delivery, then that is more likely than not a false positive. You might miss some real opens and clicks, but it would reduce the noise. This could be adjusted based on the recipient MTA behaviour spotted across the platform.

Sales & Marketing: What's the status of this? Outlook bot clicks are a real thing, and after watching screen records of a recent campaign about 90% of reported clicks are bots. They're all run on "Linux" in the US. All of them, like the original poster said, are happening within seconds of the send.