TinyURL

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TinyURL is an online service that provides short aliases to long URLs.

1 Service
2 Criticism
3 Early abuses
4 See also
5 External links

[edit] Service

The TinyURL website has a text box to enter a long URL. For each URL entered, the server adds a new alias in its database and returns a short URL such as http://tinyurl.com/dmsfm. If the URL has already been requested, TinyURL will return the existing alias rather than creating a duplicate entry. The shorter URL is forwarded to the longer one.

Short URL aliases are seen as useful because they're easier to write down, remember or pass around, are less error-prone to write, and also fit where space is limited such as IRC channel topics or email signatures. Also some email clients impose a maximum length at which they automatically break lines requiring the user to paste together a long URL rather than just clicking on it. A short URL alias is much less likely to become broken.

[edit] Criticism

The convenience offered by a TinyURL also introduces potential problems, which have led to criticism of the use of TinyURLs.

TinyURLs are opaque, hiding the ultimate destination from a web user. This can be used to unwittingly send people to sites that offend their sensibilities, or crash or compromise their computer using browser vulnerabilities. To help combat such abuse, TinyURL allows a user to set a cookie-based preference such that TinyURL stops at the TinyURL website, giving a preview of the final link, when that user clicks TinyURLs.

TinyURLs also introduce a dependency on a third-party service that may change, go away, or maintain privacy-compromising logs of user activity indefinitely.

These and other potential problems with TinyURLs have led some corporations to block access to TinyURLs.

[edit] Early abuses

Early on, the creation of TinyURL IDs was predictable, and therefore could be exploited by users to create vulgar associations.

For example, http://tinyurl.com/dick was made to link to the White House website of Dick Cheney. It now returns a message apologizing for any offense.