Panera Bread Blocks bit.ly links

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/11/09/panera-bread-blocks-bit-ly-links/

by PStamatiou • 17 years ago

12 11 17 years ago

tptacek• 17 years ago

Their network, their rules. This rule: not so great --- not because private network operators shouldn't be able to filter their links, but because it shows a lack of understanding of how HTTP works.

A smart salesguy at Bluecoat is going to see this story and make a mint.

eli• 17 years ago

Agreed. You'd think someone smart enough to set up the filtering would realize that it doesn't make any sense.

comster• 17 years ago

I fucking hate short urls.... stupidly - unnecessary imposition of 140 characters has caused the removal of any context .

apgwoz• 17 years ago

While I don't appreciate the tone of your comment, I have to agree. Seeing a short URL instead of a long URL with a slug co containing some context is welcome. I'll save my surprises for birthdays, thanks.

ubernostrum• 17 years ago

If you honestly believe that there were no shortened URLs prior to Twitter, or that they've never been used for any other purpose, well... honestly, what rock have you been hiding under the past six years?

patio11• 17 years ago

Somebody had to justify their salary for today, and they just did.

It is the inevitable curse of big organizations selling tasty sandwiches that they eventually employ people whose personal success is totally unconnected to selling tasty sandwiches.

rick888• 17 years ago

I was just at a Panera this past weekend with my laptop and I also noticed they blocked anything with the word "torrent" in it, for obvious reasons ;-).

PStamatiou• 17 years ago

I have been going to a local Panera in Atlanta at least once a week for the last 3 or so years. I’m the type that gets a big meal, coffee and plugs in for a few hours of work. I’d consider myself a pretty loyal customer. But now this? (okay im just being sensationalist.. a simple bit.ly block isn't the end of the world. if anything it'll give me the excuse i've been looking for to get a 4G CLEAR wimax usb dongle for my laptop)

Their social media efforts are gonna get put to the test to see how they can deal with all this negative (and rightly so) publicity.

Sure let them have filters for porn.. but that doesn’t mean you have to kill all bit.ly links. Let the redirects work and if it goes to a malicious site well then you can block that with whatever blacklist you want.

That being said, you might be able to get around this if you nudge their provider, Wandering Wi-Fi. I might have been able to get them to stop asking me (based on my laptop’s MAC address) to login…

nir• 17 years ago

Er, TheRealURL welcomes our new Panera Bread users.. :P http://therealurl.appspot.com/

(Seriously though, it would interesting to see if Panera will face any issues because of this - might be a measure of Twitter's real world significance)

asher• 17 years ago

I think this is PR.

http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html

And I have great respect for the person who secured $2m in funding for an url-shortening site.

jrockway• 17 years ago

I love the comments:

"As a general rule it works best if you keep gov out of private (Panera like) businesses."

The right wing has such intelligent-sounding advocates!

Panera Bread Blocks bit.ly links

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