Is Mailcity Collecting User Data thru HTTP/HTTPS?

L.Conover asks: "I figured this would be a question best hashed out by Slashdotters - I frequently use www.Mailcity.com, a free e-mail portal sponsored by Lycos. Now, each time I receive an e-mail containing a link, an automated script inserts the string 'http://proxy-mail.mailcity.lycos.com/bin/redirector2.cgi' into the link. The only reason I can think of for forcing people to use a proxy server is to collect data on where people are linking to from Mailcity. I've e-mailed their customer support folk to find out how that data collection is being used, but gotten no reply. Lycos doesn't mention any such data collection in its privacy policy, and there's no way to 'opt out' of their proxy server intrusion without cutting and pasting URLs manually. (Which I often do, because I often receive 'secure' URLs in email that include autologins.) Lycos has a partnership with DoubleClick, so I find this data collection to be more than a little shady. Anyone care to shed some light on this - and do other 'free' e-mail portals indulge in similar proxy-practices with e-mailed URLs?"