<story><title>Google Docs adds tracking to links in document exports</title><url>https://fosstodon.org/@Joe_0237/111145684757912952</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><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></comment>
<story><title>Google Docs adds tracking to links in document exports</title><url>https://fosstodon.org/@Joe_0237/111145684757912952</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>srazzaque</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m pretty sure the stated intent of the redirect is to prevent phishing (that is, provide an opportunity for Google to warn users about visiting a known dodgy site). The ability to track is just an added bonus!&lt;p&gt;Microsoft does this too with Teams. Links that my colleagues and I share with one another to _internal company sites_ get link checked then redirected.  Microsoft must have a treasure trove of data about external company employee browsing habits as a result.&lt;p&gt;I would have infinitely more respect for companies that are upfront about their intentions, no matter how nefarious: &amp;quot;we&amp;#x27;re doing this to help protect you from phishing. But also, 99% of links are probably not phishing. So this feature really enables us to collect data to track what you do, and perform analytics to improve our bottom line&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;Why sugar-coat it?</text></comment>