Comments on: Twitter changes the rules for URLs in tweets: the end of privacy or the end of the 140 character limit?

By: William Vambenepe — URL shorteners and privacy: The Good, the Bad and the Cookie

Fri, 20 Aug 2010 06:28:30 +0000

[...] the potential it offers to stretch out our tweets, I wasn’t too impressed when I learned of Twitter’s plan to roll out (and mandate) its own URL shortening service. My [...]

By: rowan

rowan — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 23:38:19 +0000

@Jeffrey and every other privacy worrier: Neither Twitter nor Google, nor any other corporation are even remotely interested in you and never were. Google (and Twitter) only cares about your wallet, a far less personal interest. This not privacy; and by the way, Walmart and every other brick-and-mortar merchant is doing the same thing, not to mention online retailers like Amazon. So if that is the privacy you are concerned about, make sure you pay cash for everything.

True privacy is a concern on a social networking site like Facebook and MySpace, only because people you know may see things you don’t want them to. This is the same privacy concern that has plagued small communities–filled with busybodies–for millennia.

By: Jerffrey A. Williams

Jerffrey A. Williams — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 18:12:55 +0000

Twitter nor Google are even remotely interested in your privacy and never were. This is why I don’t use either services.

By: William (@vambenepe on Twitter)

William (@vambenepe on Twitter) — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 21:04:38 +0000

UJK: I’ll grant you that “end of privacy” is a bit over-used these days. This is just one more cut to contribute to its bleeding death.

On the other hand, there is a difference. When I click on a bit.ly URLs:
- the purveyor of the link has decided to use bit.ly
- I know I am going to bit.ly first

With Twitter’s new system:
- the purveyor of the link has no control
- I don’t know I go to twitter, to me it looks like I am clicking on a link that goes straight to the real destination.

I think that’s significant. I’ll grant you that it’s hardly unheard of (e.g. the way Google redirects some of your clicks on its search page to its servers so it knows which result you liked). But I had higher hopes for Twitter, as “the backbone of an open, user-controlled, social data bus” as I explained in the post.

But it’s ok to call me naive.

Oh, and isn’t it ironic how this announcement came out at the same time as yet another massive service disruption by Twitter. Way to make us feel good about them inserting themselves in our browsing experience. I wonder if I violate the ToS if I switch to use the “real” link when the t.co service is down?

By: UJK

UJK — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 20:49:40 +0000

ROTFL … “end of privacy”? You’ve simply got to be kidding. How is having Twitter do the exact same kind of clickstream analysis that bit.ly has been doing all along the “end of privacy”? Big freakin’ deal. This is all for links we are gladly publishing in public and clicking through on whilst logged into Twitter — hardly anything people are going to lengths to keep particularly private. The “end of privacy” headline really detracts from some otherwise good analysis here.

By: Gaspard

Gaspard — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 17:56:13 +0000

amuse.me, good idear for a new url shortening service

By: Greg

Greg — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 16:56:25 +0000

@Nick no smart mobile device exceeds the 160 character limit for SMS they OS is merely taking the parts and combining them based on information embedded within the message

By: Nick

Nick — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 15:16:36 +0000

Isn’t it about time people got over the whole twitter fad? With the iPhone, Android, and other smart mobile devices 140 characters has not been a limit for a long time. People talk about how the limit forces them to be concise, but they’re only trying to justify why twitter sucks. Combine that with the all-too-cheesy twitter events… hey, anyone up for a Tweet Chirp Egg NestUp? Bring your twiphones and twandroid devices, we’ll be serving plentwy of tweer and other twalocoholic twinks. Twahahahaah!

By: Patrick McFarland

Patrick McFarland — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 14:26:20 +0000

So why doesn’t everyone switch to Identica already? At least there, the software running Identica (Status.Net) can be setup and you can run your own private service that interacts with other Status.Net installations (such as talking to other users on other sites or following other users on other sites) in the very small chance Identica turns evil.

By: Mike Leach

Mike Leach — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 20:51:47 +0000

Once a browser/client caches the 301 redirect from the URL shortener it will never again defer to t.co again for that URL. Even if it should become malicious.

I respect Twitter’s right to monetize their freely available service, but would agree the layers of complexity are mounding.

By: Christian

Christian — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 12:56:10 +0000

This comment is going to look like a spam because I just wanted to say: Great post. I appreciate your analysis.