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I ran across a nascent Twitter campaign to curtail usage of the popular URL reducer Bit.Ly because it's...Libyan. My first reaction was, is, WTF?

Here's some background.

Tinyurl came along in 2002 and ruled URL shortening. Bit.ly became Twitter's house URL shortener in 2009 and gunned down tinyurl. Some folks have found a link to Libya, (.ly, .libya), and have started various pograms designed to ditch the .ly shorteners.

We are not in .comland anymore, obvious .ly.

Hey, you Libyan bastards, this .ly is for you. http://bit.ly/7XLzzr

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Update
This is the same URL as above, only 'sanitized':  http://j.mp/7XLzzr Simply replace the evil bit.ly with j.mp, which then runs through the Mariana Islands. The same New York company owns registrars.

I don't see much wrong with this bit.ly thinger. Much ado about nothing.

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UPDATED 1/24/10 Reply from bit.ly to an email I sent to them last night:

--Why did you pick the name bit.ly?

We picked the name bitly because it's short and it is evocative of small bits, loosely coupled, a theme at betaworks.  Bit.ly is a shorter url than bitly.com, which we also use, and echoes the name of several micro-blogging services like present.ly, song.ly and near.ly.

To purchase the domain, we paid $75 to an online registrar accredited by ICANN, the international nonprofit that governs internet domains and naming, which is headquartered in Marina del Rey, California, here in the US of A.

--Are you confident the site will be safe?

ICANN signed an accountability framework with Libya Telecom and Technology in March 2007, which sets out the telephone company's (LTT's) obligations as a registrar for the .ly domain and provides an internationally-accepted mechanism for dispute resolution.  

ICANN sets a standard for responsibility and reliability, and we have confidence in their framework. 

We've also got a tremendous confidence in our engineering team, which has built a redundant, secure, highly-scaleable site. Every single bit.ly short url also exists as a bitly.com page.

--Do you have any issues doing business in Libya?

We don't do business in Libya, but it's worth noting that on May 31, 2006 the United States reopened the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli, a step the State Department described as marking "a new era in U.S.-Libya relations."

Rex

rex dixon  |  rex@bit.ly

Gtalk: rexduffdixon | Skype: rexdixon1 | AIM: RexDixon2006 | Twitter: @RexDixon | Twitter: @bitly | Suggestions: http://bit.ly/pvNq | Ask And Answer: http://bit.ly/13qnK

OK, Rex, thanks for that (getting it was like pulling teefs).

I'll continue my investigations.

In the interim, I installed the beta Google Toolbar (available here, for Firefox and Internet Explorer) that allows the usage of goo.gl, a proprietary URL shortener that is only available when using the SHARE feature of the Google Toolbar. You can't yet use it as a standalone URL shortener yet, srry.

I'll miss the bit.ly statistics home page, if I use goo.gl much.

(BTW, where the fuck is .gl located?   )

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