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Comment by dfc | Hacker News Reader

Ugh, a bit.ly link? Can someone change the URL to point to the actual address of the page?

http://viktorpetersson.com/2011/09/25/how-to-get-50-discount...

I love that people get up in arms about the change to google's privacy policy but have no trouble funneling traffic through bit.ly and other link shorteners...

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I recently started using bit.ly for administering surveys over the internet. We had a really crummy randomisation system where we had a ridiculously long link (approx 300 characters), so I used them. It was really useful, especially being able to see where the traffic had come from and monitor it in real time from my browser. While I agree somewhat on the general point, there are some real uses for link shorteners.

it is actually not a bit.ly link, which is unsurprising, because bit.ly links are banned here. try submitting one, it will immediately go dead.

this is some other link shortening service, which the admins haven't gotten around to banning yet. but it's just a matter of time.

It actually is a bit.ly link. Did you do anything other than look at the URL before saying I was wrong?

I will help you out. What happens when you go to cld.sg? Or what happens when you append a plus sign to the link above?

I guess it gives the original sharer some feedback on the link otherwise they would never really know what interest it got? Looking at traffic I think the link was picked up off Twitter originally hence the URL shortener too.

The original sharer is not sigma cloud (the bitly link creator).[1] Ostensibly the OP actually visited the site before posting it on HN so its not like the OP was only aware of the shortened link.

What's more important a consistent approach to privacy or "knowing how much interest someone's HN link received"?

[1] Conspiracy theory: jcloud is an astro-turfing account for sigma cloud. The jcloud account was created 377 days ago the same day a sigma cloud story was posted. Jcloud's first post was on the sigmacloud story and was complimentary of sigma cloud:

    "Just discovered these guys. Nice interface actually.
    Investigating a bit more but so far so good."

Of the three stories jcloud posted two were shortened with sg.cd and the third was a sigma cloud press release.

My point was that the first hit on the article is on Twitter and was from CloudSigma. So I'm guessing the URL was copy pasted from there. Looking at jclouds account, submissions do generally come from CloudSigma tweets but it seems to relate generally to wider things not that company. The residual value of a URL shortening isn't clear to do to the lengths you suggest. Your post gives more advertising than the submissions thus far ;-) The three submissions made by jclouds-fan seem to be of a high quality. The first relating to the same blog as this latest one so looks like a user with a narrow interest base!

LOL, this is the second story where you have defended sigma cloud in regards to astroturfing. A bunch of your early posts where all sigmacloud stories. Are you affiliated with sigma cloud?

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