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[-] hypelightfly@kbin.social 82 points 1 year ago

Nobody should be using URL shorteners in the first place.

[-] Greg@lemmy.ca 27 points 1 year ago

URL shorteners are but inherently bad. I find them useful. I self host them on domains I own. So they're secure, trust worthy, I can track engagement, and I can update them if need be.

Plus, I'm pretty sure Twitter forces you to use their shortener. My URL http://gho.st was "shortened" to a longer https://t.co/blahblah URL 😂

[-] jarfil@beehaw.org 57 points 1 year ago

I can track engagement, and I can update them if need be

That's inherently bad as in:

  • Third party (you) tracking the user
  • Hiding the true target from the user
  • Destroying any attempt at content archival

They're not inherently bad "for you", just for everyone else.

[-] Greg@lemmy.ca 13 points 1 year ago

Third party (you) tracking the user

I'm not tracking users, I'm tracking engagement. I'm not Zuckerberg

Hiding the true target from the user

99.99% of website use a reverse proxy, the target is nearly always hidden. I don't think you understand how the internet works.

Destroying any attempt at content archival

Who would archive a shortened URL and not follow the link to its target? It's not my fault if people don't know how to archive my content.

URL shorteners are not inherently bad.

[-] jarfil@beehaw.org 5 points 1 year ago

I'm not tracking users, I'm tracking engagement

Whose engagement? Anything on your server, you can track it with the access logs, do you know how the internet works?

99.99% of website use a reverse proxy, the target is nearly always hidden. I don't think you understand how the internet works.

Do you know how a reverse proxy works? It doesn't change the user-facing URL like a shortener.

Who would archive a shortened URL and not follow the link to its target? It's not my fault if people don't know how to archive my content.

Someone archiving the original content. It's your fault for breaking the link at a whim.

URL shorteners are inherently bad.

[-] Greg@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 year ago

Whose engagement?

The engagement with my presentation for instance. I don't care about tracking specific users.

It doesn’t change the user-facing URL like a shortener.

Where the user-facing URL points can easily be changed! For instance, changing the DNS record or changing where the reverse proxy points. I really don't think you understand how the internet works under the hood.

Someone archiving the original content. It’s your fault for breaking the link at a whim.

I'm not going to optimize my content for lazy archivers. Check out web.archive.org for an example of how to properly archive, they update the URLs so links don't break

[-] redcalcium@lemmy.institute 8 points 1 year ago

Third party (you) tracking the user

No, he's not a third party, he's the second party in this context because you visit his own website, hosted on his own server.

[-] jarfil@beehaw.org 10 points 1 year ago

On his own website, hosted on his own server, he has server logs to track whatever he wants, change whatever content he wants to display, and do whatever else he wants.

The only reason to use a URL shortener, is to interpose himself between his server and someone else's server, meaning to become a third party to the relationship between user and other server.

[-] mojo@lemm.ee 3 points 1 year ago

I see zero reason why others would be entitled to archive your content, nor hiding the true target from the user. Those are not bad things.

[-] jarfil@beehaw.org 5 points 1 year ago

Read up on Archive.org and "link rot".

[-] mojo@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago

I know what that is, and I believe in the right to be forgotten.

[-] jarfil@beehaw.org 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

The right to detach your (private) personal information from some content, doesn't mean you should have the right for your content to be forgotten.

[-] mojo@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Yes you should...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_be_forgotten

Privacy is a big reason why. Archiving is also a very common way to dox people. Not to mention, I just don't want my shit to exist online indefinitely. I want my data to be forgotten. In what way is this bad. Hoarding everything indefinitely is bad.

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this post was submitted on 15 Aug 2023
306 points (99.7% liked)

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