Everyone that shares links loves the convenience of so-called URL shorteners. Even if you don’t think you know what they are, you have undoubtedly seen them, probably even used them.
These are services that take a long URL, or web address, , such as this: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Saint-Louis-MO/Exec-Business-Products/55782208138?ref=nf and shorten it to something more manageable, like this: http://bit.ly/1lk8aP.
These are handy tools if you like to share links, especially if you do so on Twitter, where you can only use 140 characters and space is at a premium.
However, for as long as there have been these URL shortening services, there have also been debates about their shortcomings. Most of those debates have centered around the argument that once you shorten your URL, you have in effect given it away to the company providing the shortening. We can debate some other time whether this is an actual shortcoming or not.
Web security firm Symantec, in a new demonstration video, suggests that we are all missing the real danger in shortened links: that they mask potentially harmful destinations.
Let me be quick to mention that the URL shortening services are not the bad guys here. The real bad guys are just using the link shortening technology. One of the leading URL shortening services, Bit.ly, is starting to warn users to potentially harmful links and there are plugins available that will show you the long version of the shortened link before you click on it. (Here are some for Firefox.)
These tools and some common sense regarding what you are clicking are probably enough to keep you protected.
Here is the video from Symantec:
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