Google URL Shortener Opened To the Public

Anonymusing writes "Just what the world needs, another URL shortener, right? Google seems to think so, and it's making its own widely available to anyone — complete with tracking and statistics — for free. As noted on its blog: 'There are many shorteners out there with great features, so some people may wonder whether the world really needs yet another. As we said late last year, we built goo.gl with a focus on quality. With goo.gl, every time you shorten a URL, you know it will work, it will work fast, and it will keep working. You also know that when you click a goo.gl shortened URL, you're protected against malware, phishing and spam using the same industry-leading technology we use in search and other products.' Is bit.ly shaking in its boots?"

Comments

complete with tracking and statistics

[Galestar]

As in, one more place where Google gets to track you and make you a statistic.

Re:complete with tracking and statistics

[beakerMeep]

It's not just the tracking that's bad, it's all the problems that come with having an extra middle man and not being able to see what you are clicking. Certainly Google doesn't protect everyone from all malware that shows up in search results, there's no reason to think they can here (I think they do a good job considering, but malware is still hugely pervasive). It also breaks the move to a more semantic web. Just look at Slashdot's URL for this story and you can see what the story is about, what category it's in and when it was posted.

interesting blog post i read a few months back about some of the pitfalls

In my opinion URL shortening is bad for the web, and bad for usability. It's also something pretty easily created by any website on their own if they really need it.

Who?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is bit.ly shaking in its boots?

Dunno, I've never heard of them before. Should I have?

FOR FREE OMG

[Punto]

this reminds me of the old "subscribe to my free newsletter". who the hell pays for an URL shortener in the first place?

I Am Not a Number

[handy_vandal]

I am not a number!

I am the aggregate of a huge array of numbers!

Still less reliable than a real URL

[noidentity]

With goo.gl, every time you shorten a URL, you know it will work, it will work fast, and it will keep working. You also know that when you click a goo.gl shortened URL, you're protected against malware, phishing and spam using the same industry-leading technology we use in search and other products.

It's still less reliable than a URL to the actual page, and can still be used to trick people into visiting sites they would not want to visit if they knew the URL. And remember, these shorteners should only be used when a short URL is needed. Anywhere you can embed a link, it doesn't matter if it's ridiculously long. Only where the URL itself must be included as plain text does its length even possibly matter.

Ahh, but does it protect you from. . .

[JSBiff]

goatse, tubgirl, etc?

I can't imagine they could possibly protect you from every possible. . . undesirable thing that someone might create a shortened link to.

Re:Too bad for case-sentive

[Archangel Michael]

But, if you're really clever, you can do something like four sets of octets to tell people, it is about as intuitive as URL shorteners.

Re:Leave it to Google to throw shareholder money a

[Anonymous Psychopath]

Lessee... they tried making a browser, an OS, a VOIP app, an office suite... all duds. They bought YouTube and now they're ruining it by putting ads on top of people's videos. Everything Google touches turns to s&#t except, of course, for search.

Maybe they should stick with what they do right. I'm sure the shareholders would appreciate the savings in the form of dividends.

Without commenting on your interesting and unusual interpretation of the word "duds", I do think you should have had a look at their stock performance before saying silly things about shareholder value and dividends.

Re:TinyURL

[randomsearch]

http://goo.gl/cr4p+

The power of slashdot.

RS