

Ask HN: Why does Google proxy links in an email? - hellbanner

I&#x27;m testing a reset password link in a Rails app. When I click it from gmail.com, my firefox browser goes to<p>https:&#x2F;&#x2F;mail.google.com&#x2F;_&#x2F;scs&#x2F;mail-static&#x2F;_&#x2F;js&#x2F;k=gmail.main.en.piH2wZyhMOREGIBBERISH....<p>before routing to the &#x2F;reset_password url. What is google doing with this URL proxying?
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twunde
I don't know for sure but most likely they're doing it for the same reasons
they proxy images: Better protection against malware Source:
[http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2013/12/images-now-
showing.htm...](http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2013/12/images-now-showing.html)

Additionally I would assume that they may use the data for analytics and
advertising in order to display more relevant ads. Another possibility would
be to complement the site data they got from crawling websites.

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hellbanner
Thanks for creeping me out, Google.

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benologist
It's probably so they can disable malicious links.

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hellbanner
If they wanted to disable malicious links, they could crawl the page and
substitute the link for a warning page (ala Chrome's "this site may be
phising")

