<story><title>Google Docs adds tracking to links in document exports</title><url>https://fosstodon.org/@Joe_0237/111145684757912952</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>londons_explore</author><text>This is because google docs is now widely used as a malware vector.&lt;p&gt;Send the user to a google docs page, and because it is on the google domain it is trusted by corporate firewalls and AV scanners.&lt;p&gt;The &amp;#x27;tracking&amp;#x27; is in fact this page:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.google.com&amp;#x2F;url?q=https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;wikimediafoundation.org&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.google.com&amp;#x2F;url?q=https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;wikimediafoundation.org...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;And that alerts the user to the fact they are leaving google and ending up on another site - which hopefully reduces the effectiveness of using google docs to distribute malware.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>hn_throwaway_99</author><text>But I had my pitchfork out and everything...&lt;p&gt;Seriously, 9 times out of 10 when I see stuff like this, I&amp;#x27;m happy I can go to the HN comments and see what the real deal is. I don&amp;#x27;t think Google deserves a free pass in their decisions, and lots of times I see them push things for &amp;quot;user safety&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;better user experience&amp;quot;, oh and oh yeah it also happens to allow Google to better track you. But still, Google has tons of competing issues they need to balance, and I loath it when people pretend like &lt;i&gt;their&lt;/i&gt; need is the only one that matters.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s like the debate over Google requiring 2FA for logins. &amp;quot;People losing their 2FA device&amp;quot; is a valid concern, but so is the 10 or 100x the people who get hacked with bad passwords. Not arguing there is a single solution, but you can&amp;#x27;t argue in good faith by pretending the problem Google is trying to address doesn&amp;#x27;t exist.</text></comment>
<story><title>Google Docs adds tracking to links in document exports</title><url>https://fosstodon.org/@Joe_0237/111145684757912952</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>londons_explore</author><text>This is because google docs is now widely used as a malware vector.&lt;p&gt;Send the user to a google docs page, and because it is on the google domain it is trusted by corporate firewalls and AV scanners.&lt;p&gt;The &amp;#x27;tracking&amp;#x27; is in fact this page:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.google.com&amp;#x2F;url?q=https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;wikimediafoundation.org&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.google.com&amp;#x2F;url?q=https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;wikimediafoundation.org...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;And that alerts the user to the fact they are leaving google and ending up on another site - which hopefully reduces the effectiveness of using google docs to distribute malware.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>nemetroid</author><text>The complaint is about documents &lt;i&gt;exported&lt;/i&gt; from Google Docs.</text></comment>