What’s Hiding Behind That Shortened URL

TinyURL.com, bit.ly and the new su.pr from Stumbleupon are all tools you can use for shortening URL’s, especially useful for Twitter and other micro blogging sites due to their limitation on each message.

However, I had never thought of the possible implications of shortened URL’s, primarily the ability to hide any references to bad sites hosting malware, phishing scams etc.

I found this in my server logs when someone used longURL.org to expand one of my shortened URL’s for a recent post, most likely found on my Twitter account or Digg as these are common places to find shortened URL’s.

It really made me think about how blindly we click on shortened URL’s expecting them to go to where the description says they will.

Have you had any bad experiences with shortened URL’s taking you places you hadnt expect? Is this a huge problem waiting to happen?