Antivirus Secuirty Warnings about CC Links

[evolveWorld]

Some of our contacts are telling me that, when they click on a link in our emails, their antivirus software tells them that they are clicking a risky link. In one instance, it happened to a member of our team. It said that uBlock Origin had found the following: rs.net -- which was deemed unsafe by Peter Lowe's Ad and Tracking server list. Recently, a woman using Norton Antivirus was warned. I have no idea how many people are getting these warnings. But this is a serious problem. The emails are being received but the recipients are being told that the links are contaminated. This is also a big problem for CC. Our numbers of clicks and registrations is way down. I wonder if this is why. Anyone else with this issue?

Here's the message from uBlock:

[evolveWorld]

Hello @evolveWorld ,

Any webpage links you insert into your emails are rewritten to the r20.rs6 for the sake of click reporting. As this is a Compliance element, it's not something that can be affected from within the account or email builder. The only way for your contacts to open the links would be to either click on them in a webpage version of the email (either via the View as Webpage link you insert or via the email's shareable URL), or to safelist our domains in the extensions, blockers, and security programs they're running.

[William_A]

Hello @evolveWorld ,

Any webpage links you insert into your emails are rewritten to the r20.rs6 for the sake of click reporting. As this is a Compliance element, it's not something that can be affected from within the account or email builder. The only way for your contacts to open the links would be to either click on them in a webpage version of the email (either via the View as Webpage link you insert or via the email's shareable URL), or to safelist our domains in the extensions, blockers, and security programs they're running.

[evolveWorld]

Hi WIlliam,

Thanks for responding. So, to do what you say, for every link in my emails, I would have to include the unique URL or say "Please view this email as a webpage...click here" or something else. Basically to address this problem, because I don't know who all is getting this response by which antivirus program, I would have to say in every email that the receiver should do x, y, or z if they get a warning message about the links. I know that the "rs.net" code is in every link by CC. This is the problem! If this bit of code has been flagged and people are getting warnings, then shouldn't CC be exploring how to change the code? You say it's for click reporting, which of course we all want to see how our emails are working. But if that now counts as "tracking cookies" by security software, it's counterproductive. Do you see what I mean?

Let me say it again: I don't know who gets this warning message or not. I only hear from loyal contacts when they are surprised to get a message that our email links are dangerous. The danger may really be nothing, but they don't know that. It destroys our reputation and seems to lessen the number of clicks that we are getting. This is a significant problem--for us and for CC. Can it be fixed by CC?

[William_A]

The fix is to safelist the tracking link. If you're concerned about other contacts encountering this issue, then I'd advise including the view as webpage link in your email (which is a best practice default anyway).