SES adding tracking link but tracking is disabled

It appears that you're experiencing an unexpected behavior with Amazon SES (Simple Email Service) link tracking. While you've disabled engagement tracking in your Voice and Delivery Management (VDM) settings and in the sending profile override, SES is still adding tracking links to your emails. This is indeed unusual if you haven't made any recent changes.

To address this issue, you have a few options:

1. Double-check your configuration settings: Ensure that click tracking is truly disabled in your configuration set and that you're using the correct configuration set when sending emails.

2. Disable click tracking for individual links: If you want to keep using SES but prevent tracking on specific links, you can add the 'ses:no-track' attribute to the anchor tags in the HTML body of your email. For example:

   <a href="https://example.com" ses:no-track>Link text</a>

3. Contact AWS Support: If you've verified all your settings and the issue persists, it may indeed be a bug in the AWS systems. In this case, reaching out to AWS Support would be the best course of action to resolve the problem.

4. Review your TrackingOptions: If you're using a custom domain for tracking, make sure it's properly set up and verified in Amazon SES. An invalid tracking domain can cause issues with link functionality.

Remember, when properly configured, Amazon SES should respect your tracking preferences. If it's not doing so, it's important to investigate further or seek assistance from AWS to ensure your emails are being sent according to your specified settings.
Sources
Amazon SES email sending metrics FAQs - Amazon Simple Email Service
TrackingOptions - Amazon Simple Email Service
UpdateConfigurationSetTrackingOptions - Amazon Simple Email Service