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Google Unveils goo.gl URL Shortening Service

eldavojohn writes "The Sultan of Search is unveiling a new service (currently only available for Google Toolbar and Feedburner) that will tackle a very old problem usually solved by bit.ly or tinyurl — URL shortening. Now, we've heard cries for sanity to prevent potential issues (like what if tr.im had shut down and broken millions of links?) but with one of the goliaths of the industry jumping in the ring it looks like URL shortening is here to stay. And a quick note for people who enjoy privacy, goo.gl explicitly states: 'Please note that Google may choose to publicly display aggregate and non-personally identifiable statistics about particular shortened links, such as the number of end user clicks.' You didn't think Google was going to sit back and let bit.ly harvest juicy data on 2.1 billion links that were clicked in November without trying to corner some of that action to make their ad suggestions more accurate, did you?" Google's shortening service is called Goo.gl.

5 of 242 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Other services work fine by Bottles · · Score: 5, Funny

    i 4 1 wl b avoiding ths. XStng sRvcs wRk fine & this is 1 mr way goo.gl headed 2wrds Nfo omnisns

    There! Shortened that for you!

  2. Re:Why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Here's your answer: http://bit.ly/4kb77v

  3. Re:You guys missed one tiny, important detail... by smallfries · · Score: 5, Funny

    Hang on. He only proved that he can't read, we need proof that he can't write either before Slashdot hires him..

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  4. Re:Is this really a problem? by OzPeter · · Score: 5, Funny

    Long links in twitter messages significantly reduce the amount of available characters.

    Google is really going to look foolish when my new, extensible length twitter service comes out. This new service will allow arbitrary length messages and thus totally eliminate the need to link shortening.

    Although I haven't yet named my new service, I am leaning towards calling it "eMail", but I need to check if that name has already been taken.

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  5. Re:Why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Rick rolling is nothing compared to that time someone posted a url to the FBI site on Slashdot.

    Url had a GET message confessing to having a hard drive full of CP, and it got modded +5 funny.