There's a bunch more after the q parameter:
&sa=D&source=editors&ust=16965233434352076&usg=Ade5344w26X85-pHzoD-rVkkdfdfBQnJ7B
That sure looks like tracking data to me.
https://www.google.com/url?q=https://example.com/
Google has had this open redirect forever afaict. I guess they don't consider that a serious threat.
I think the better answer is that this is tracking, just like they do on all of the search results, to see which links are most popular. There still might be a malware surveillance use case but that's not the only one.