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Bit.ly is Harmful to Your Reputation

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app103:
If you tweet links on Twitter, retweet links from other people, or have a website in which someone might tweet a link to it, you are going to want to read this, because this can potentially affect any or all of us and harm our reputations.

It started with me trying to promote DC a little, to a writer on TechCrunch, which lead to a discovery of how Bit.ly blacklists links shortened by other services, adding an interstitial page that calls the target site harmful, malware, a forgery, spam, and phishing.

When the writer retweeted my link I sent to him, DC was flagged as a bad site, just because I choose to use a competing URL shortener and his twitter client automatically shortens all links with bit.ly (whether they need it or not).

I contacted bit.ly about it, attempting to get the flag removed from the DC link, and their response and attitude were quite alarming.

For the full story, read my blog post about the whole thing;


http://cranialsoup.blogspot.com/2010/04/bitly-is-harmful-to-your-reputation.html

Eóin:
Devils advocate: Outside of a constrained medium like twitter I would consider it right to warn user that they are clicking on masked or obfusticated URLs. It is a very dubious practice, personally I almost never click such hidden links.

But nonetheless you are correct here app, there is no excuse for one url shortening service to flag their competitors as malicious.

[edit] Just noticed that it's a nice ironic twist the the bit.ly link is longer than the original  :D

mouser:
Kind of outrageous that they won't unflag it (or don't have the ability to do so) as harmful once notified.

Companies these days seem to pretty much have a careless and carefree attitude these days regarding telling people that other sites are "dangerous" and "harmful" based on almost no justification at all -- pretty outrageous really considering the damage it can do to a site's reputation.  Maybe a few lawsuits will change their mind.

ps. Also, seems like some blame should be laid at the feet of any twitter client that is re-shortening already short urls.

40hz:
 :deal: I liked your idea about shortening a link to bit.ly with a competing service and then submitting it back to bit.ly to trigger a false positive.

Hoisting someone on their own petard is poetic justice at it's best.

(BTW - remind me never to get you mad at me. )

app103:
Kind of outrageous that they won't unflag it (or don't have the ability to do so) as harmful once notified.
-mouser (April 18, 2010, 03:48 PM)
--- End quote ---

I would not have gone on the war path with this if they had the right attitude about it and done the right thing.

ps. Also, seems like some blame should be laid at the feet of any twitter client that is re-shortening already short urls.
-mouser (April 18, 2010, 03:48 PM)
--- End quote ---

I have attempted to contact the developers of TweetDeck about this, but so far there has been no response. I also don't know if this issue is limited to just TweetDeck or if it affects any of the million other Twitter clients.

Devils advocate: Outside of a constrained medium like twitter I would consider it right to warn user that they are clicking on masked or obfusticated URLs. It is a very dubious practice, personally I almost never click such hidden links.
-Eóin (April 18, 2010, 03:46 PM)
--- End quote ---

There is a big difference between warning the user of masked or obfusticated URLs, offering a preview of the target site, and flat out calling the target a bad site with reputation damaging terms like malware, phishing, forgery, and spam without any proof whatsoever.

(BTW - remind me never to get you mad at me. )
-40hz (April 18, 2010, 03:49 PM)
--- End quote ---

I thought everybody that knows me knew that by now.  :D

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