On Feb 24, 2006, at 8:59 AM — 2/24/06, Bill Brown wrote:

> "LISTSERV list owners' forum" <[log in to unmask]> wrote on
> 02/23/2006 04:15:37 PM:
>
>> try TinyURL:
>>   http://tinyurl.com/
>
> Does anyone else mistrust tinyurl?
>
> I hate that when someone sends me one of those links, I have no  
> idea where
> it will take me to.  I used urlx.org, but they are currently having  
> some
> technical difficulties.  Part of the generated URL indicates the  
> domain
> that you will be redirected to.  Ie. http://urlx.org/edbrill.com/4f00
> shows that I would be redirected to some page on EdBrill.com.

That's a fair question. I judge the trustworthiness on the context of  
the message in which such URL cites occur and the person writing the  
cite.
For example, I have no problem trusting any URL's I see cited on this  
list. On Usenet newsgroups that are unmoderated and prone to spam, I
do not willy nilly click on such links unless I am given a good  
reason to do so.