Why are links in gmail redirected?

Question

I noticed that some mail services (for example, gmail or my school webmail) will redirect links (or were used) in the body of the message. So when I put "www.google.com" in my email address and I check this email in gmail or something like that, the link says something like "gmail.com/redirect?www.google. com ".

It was very confusing for me and the people I emailed (for example, my parents who are not familiar with computers). I always clicked on the link anyway, but why is this service used? (It also worries me that maybe my information is being sent somewhere ... Do I have something to worry about? Is something stored before being redirected?)

Sorry if this is unreasonable paranoia. I'm just wondering why some things work the way they do.

Answer 1

This is a dereferrer redirect to avoid exposing the URL in the HTTP Referer field on third-party sites, as this URL may contain sensitive data such as session ID.

Answer 2

Wikipedia has a good article on URL redirection . From the article:

Registration of outgoing links

Access logs of most web servers provide information on where visitors came from and how they viewed the hosted site. However, they do not register visitor links. This is because the visitor’s browser does not need to contact the original server when the visitor clicks on the outbound link. This information can be captured in several ways. One way includes URL redirection. Instead of sending the visitor directly to another site, links on the site can directly to the URL of the original website domain, which automatically redirects to the real target. This technique has the disadvantage of delay caused by an additional request to the source site server. In the form, this added request will leave a trace in the server’s log, which link has been followed, it can also be a privacy problem. 1 The same technique is also used by some corporate websites to introduce an expression that subsequent content is located on another website and therefore is not necessarily associated with the corporation. In such scenarios, displaying an alert causes an additional delay.

So yes, Google (and Facebook and Twitter do this) register where your services take you. This is important for a number of reasons: it allows them to know how their service is used, shows trends in data, allows you to monetize links, etc.

As for your problems, my personal opinion is that if you are on the Internet, you are being tracked. All time. If it concerns you, I would recommend communication in different ways. However, for the most part, I think this is not worth the worry.