| >that link is *not* the same as the above, which is *exactly* why
| >tinyurl is *bad* and should never be used, as it doesn't necessarily go
| >to where the user says it does.
| >
| In at least the last ten years I have never had that happen, nor have I
| heard a complaint about a link I posted, although i use it quite often/
I generally ignore those links. They're a bad idea
that never really served any purpose. There's no
reason not to post the full link. It's just as easy to
copy/paste 3 lines as it is to copy/paste one short
line. And all sorts of things could hide in a link.
It may go to the wrong place. It may track you.
It may add a 3rd-party tracker. For instance, a
media site could provide short links "for convenience"
and send people invisibly to a site that tracks
and then loads the true destination. Malware could
even be installed that way. You could end up being
sent to a site in Russia or China on your way to your
destination and never see any indication that it
happened.
(Google actually tracks all visitors by sending clicks
through their own server first. They started doing that
a couple of years ago. They *sort of* don't hide it,
but it's a kind of open secret. One can see it if one
hovers over the link and has a status bar, but most
people don't know enough to notice. That's exactly
what a shortened link can do.)