Gmail for android silently overwrites links in your emails, so it can track what you open

I clicked on a link inside an email from a privacy service, and was surprised to see they used google tracking for their stuff, so I opened it in thunderbird and behold, it had no tracking.

But the worst part is… if I went back again and long pressed the link on gmail, it showed the link preview, WITHOUT the tracking. There’s some kind of rule, so try it first on a new, unopened email, without long clicking. You’ll need something to intercept it because the browser will just redirect to the main link.

Imagine the mailman looking at you, noting down which letters you open, it’s crazy.

I noticed this thanks to link eye, an app that intercept all browser links and shows a list of supported apps, so you can redirect to the preferred one. It also displays the link, it’s abandoned but still working.

I’m 99% sure I have all the privacy stuff set correctly. I suppose it may also happen on desktop/ios, but I have no way to check it

Also fedia is not showing me a field to set the post title, so I’m sorry if everything ends up in the title or if the title is empty

long press

opened link

  • Kissaki@feddit.orgEnglish
    20·
    2 days ago

    Outlook replaces weblinkes in emails as well, to a “safelinks” redirect URL. Certainly a security feature, but man it’s annoying. Not just the redirect, and the potential tracking, but when a readable URL to my build server build turns into a multiline cryptic unreadable mess and then pollutes my webbrowser history - fuck.

    I already thought about a Thunderbird extension where I can replace them back to their original.

    (My workplace uses Outlook.)

      • Kissaki@feddit.orgEnglish
        1·
        2 hours ago

        When I access through Thunderbird via IMAP the emails have been rewritten. It’s not local to the Outlook client software.

        I think my webmail is outlook.office.com, dunno if that’s the same as outlook.office365.com. It may be a org/account setting managed by my org. Maybe you also don’t receive emails with unlabeled links, where it’s very obvious that they’re replaced. On linked text, only if you notice the URL you’re opening.

    • Kairos@lemmy.today
      2·
      2 days ago

      It’s literally never done anything except add delay. It shouldn’t be showing the fucking link if its dangerous especially because there’s ways around it.