I don’t like it, but I had to do it.
From now on urlBorg will ask you to login if you want to create a short URL. The reason is that spammers took advantage of the URL shortening service to create short URLs they included in spam emails. As a result I got many complaints, I even have to pay $199 to GoDaddy (where the domain is registered) to
[...] cover the costs of responding to or “cleaning up” the outstanding spam complaints Go Daddy has received against your domain name so far. This fee is also used to cover the costs of processing future complaints, forwarding these complaints to you, and ensuring that the offending affiliates have been deleted. [...]
I still think GoDaddy is wrong to consider urlBorg part of the problem, but the truth is that even free on-line services should try to make the web a better and safer place. Authentication should make urlBorg spammer-unfriendly, or at least make it easier for me to fight them by disabling spam accounts and all their short URLs if necessary.
Requiring an account might be annoying to some, I understand. On the other hand, you can be sure all your short URLs are tracked and added to your profile (a feature that most urlBorg users like and depend on). Plus it will add some more “credibility” to any links starting with “ub0.cc”.
Obviously, users just clicking on short URLs are not affected, this is for people using urlBorg to create short URLs.
API usage is not affected, either.
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Did GoDaddy include the quoted statement in their AUP that you accepted when you signed up or is the $199 an extra charge that you have to pay now, because of the complaints they received?
@Sotiris: basically they gave me two choices.
1. pay $75 for the handling of the issue so far, and take my domain somewhere else.
2. pay $199 (+taxes) one-off to participate in a program they have, so that future events are handled free of charge.
I have to admit that even though I didn’t like this at all, I’m not so angry with them now. That said, I would have appreciated if they had handled the first case for free, and warn me that if this happens in the future, they will have to charge me.
how do you know that API is not part of the “problem”. I mean how do you know that spammers they don’t just use the not authenticated api. I just tested it to give a link from tweetdeck and it worked.
@karpidis: I don’t. But it’s much easier to manage accounts than individual URLs.
Do other sites (shortening URLs) face the same problem? Are they charged this extra cost?
How do they deal with the problem?
@karpidis: BTW, the API had authentication since day one.
@Petty: I wouldn’t know. This is partly up to the domain registrar, too. But I’m sure they have similar problems.
I was just wondering what if I am doing my spam using tweetdeck. Who is charged. You or someone else?
Hi,
Clearly spammers have found a way around your authentication as there are spam mails being spewed out right now linking to pharma sites using ub0.cc links…
Like this one…
Seri0us Seasonal Medication Discounts!
Thanks for bringing this up.