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Gmail/G Suite now editing URLs in mail message bodies to use Google URL redirect

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Re: Gmail/G Suite now editing URLs in mail message bodies to use Google URL redirect

#41

Post by nullc »

sneak wrote: post #10
abdullahkhalids wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Test messages to myself from Thunderbird and from gmail web interface did not get rewritten. How can I replicate this?

Send me an email at sneak@sneak.berlin and I'll send you my G Suite address that you can send a test message to that contains a URL, and I'll forward it back to you from my non-G Suite account so you can see what happens.

It's better if people can reproduce it without your involvement so that the result is independent of you.

Perhaps some law enforcement agency has asked google to specifically track URLs in your messages and it's just you seeing this.

Re: Gmail/G Suite now editing URLs in mail message bodies to use Google URL redirect

#42

Post by asdfasgasdgasdg »

srtjstjsj wrote: post #33
asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can also use this for phishing prevention. There are probably other ways to do it -- e.g. you could rewrite the url dynamically at read time if it's been detected as a phishing attack -- but using a redirector is likely simpler. Tbh I'm struggling a little to understand what the threat model is here. You trust gmail to receive and handle your email. In the vast majority of cases, you're accessing the email throu…

Many people assume, rightly or wrongly, that Google isn't processing their mail content for business purposes.

Not seeing how this observation addresses my question about the threat model. I mean you're absolutely right (and I think that assumption is also accurate), but I don't see how it's relevant.

Re: Gmail/G Suite now editing URLs in mail message bodies to use Google URL redirect

#43

Post by easton »

So just like Microsoft has literally done for years?[0] I don't know how many times I've clicked on internal documentation that has a link that went through Outlook at some point and was wrapped in a safe link. It's designed to catch bad links without safe browsing in your browser (which things like IE and old Edge didn't have).

0: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/security/offi...

Re: Gmail/G Suite now editing URLs in mail message bodies to use Google URL redirect

#44

Post by brirec »

londons_explore wrote: post #23
djbebs wrote: post #4

How can this be legal?

It's to protect the privacy of the Gmail user - it means the website doesn't get to know that you came from gmail.com. Google doesn't get any extra info, since they already had all your email contents and you already had a privacy agreement with them. One could argue that they have to do this to meet the law.

This only works for inline images because Google caches them, and then you get the images from Google’s cache. It has nothing to do with external links.

If Google redirects you to a website, you’re still going to the website. Unless Google internally follows all the links in emails it won’t do anything to help spam. Not to mention all tracked links I’ve ever seen track primarily based on the URL itself.

Additionally, Google adding a redirection step won’t save anything, except show via HTTP Referer that you were linked to this page by Google. If you clicked the link from a desktop IMAP client you’d have no referer, so this is a net loss for privacy, not a gain.

Re: Gmail/G Suite now editing URLs in mail message bodies to use Google URL redirect

#46

Post by defnotashton2 »

tjoff wrote: post #32
phreack wrote: post #21

This is really urgent if it goes beyond A/B. Possibly even illegal already under some interpretations. It'd finally make me leave Gmail for sure.

Why would the outcome of the A/B matter? The writing is on the wall. Maybe get out now rather than waiting for the frog to get cooked.

Is the another non chromium browser that can handle more than 5 extensions?

Ff extension management is terrible which i find unusable in an age where I need extensions to prevent sites from removing usability features like select, copy, and paste.

I'm using brave but I don't fully understand how it's related to chromium and if it's a true fork that they are going to be able to maintain independently. I have many many extensions in brave and an extension manager that let's me toggle them right from a drop down. Any suggestions?

Re: Gmail/G Suite now editing URLs in mail message bodies to use Google URL redirect

#47

Post by akerro »

phreack wrote: post #21

This is really urgent if it goes beyond A/B. Possibly even illegal already under some interpretations. It'd finally make me leave Gmail for sure.

>It'd finally make me leave Gmail for sure.

If Snowdens leaks didn't make you leave nothing will.

Re: Gmail/G Suite now editing URLs in mail message bodies to use Google URL redirect

#50

Post by bArray »

jollofricepeas wrote: post #30
oefrha wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, you have a history of making wild accusations like this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21109530

Agreed. His “evidence” means nothing and his background is very shady. Those screenshots could be completely made up. Can someone else verify with raw data?

I've tried from both GMail and Thunderbird, not able to repeat the experiment.
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