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The blogger reports that bit.ly updated their page, to explain why a link may be disallowed. He doesn't accept their explanation, but it does make a lot of sens
by Confusion 17y ago
The blogger reports that bit.ly updated their page, to explain why a link may be disallowed. He doesn't accept their explanation, but it does make a lot of sense:
- Some URL-shorteners re-use their links, so bit.ly can't
guarantee the validity of this link.
- Some URL-shorteners allow their links to be edited,
so bit.ly can't tell where this link will lead you.
- Spam and malware is very often propagated by exploiting
these loopholes, neither of which bit.ly allows for
- amalcon 17y agoIt seems a little shaky to me, because: 1) bit.ly could reject the link at submission time, instead of at the time of usage. This would eliminate the whole problem. 2) bit.ly could follow the link, unshorten it, and then shorten the original link. This would eliminate these concerns.
- dasil003 17y agoIt makes some shallow sense, but on deeper investigation it's anti-competitive bullshit that is not much better than the scams they claim to be protecting you against. Think about it, since when is bit.ly the arbiter of link safety? Does bit.ly provide you a guarantee that they will not ever link to malware? Of course not! They could not afford the liability on that. Anyone could post a malicious link anywhere. Any page can set up a 301 redirect any time. People can post malware links anywhere any time. What's going on here is that bit.ly is breaking links arbitrarily, and doing it to third parties without their consent or even knowledge. It might be possible that a credible legal case could be mounted against bit.ly on this basis. Quite simply, it is neither their right nor their responsibility to be the link police of the internet, and it also is far from within their power. These guys are overstepping in a major way.