I saw this too. I have a gmail account, but I actually blocked google.com in my hosts file on windows. So when I would click ANY link in gmail it would fail. I

I saw this too. I have a gmail account, but I actually blocked google.com in my hosts file on windows. So when I would click ANY link in gmail it would fail. It looks like the link has to pass through some google gateway or something before redirecting to the intended destination. Of course if I just copy the link url and paste in a new tab it works. But yeah google fiddles with the URL for sure.