Hacker News Reader

Comment by PhasmaFelis | Hacker News Reader

Why would you use bit.ly links in email?

Because they want to track clicks on links to URLs that they don't control the content of. Otherwise they'd be using utm_ query parameters and an in-site analytics system.

Bitly links in email are super super shady.

Are they though? They could just set up their own redirection service on their own domain - not anything complicated in that. My guess is they use it because it's just a simple way for marketing to add some analytics - that doesn't have to be shady.

That's what parent said. I don't think he is implying it's shady behaviour just that it looks that way. Difference is it hides the real domain from the user and email scanners.

The sibling replies are mostly a load of bollocks. E-mail based publishers track clicks anyway through much better means, such as Mailchimp's click tracking - no reputable sender needs to use bit.ly to track stuff.

The reason bit.ly links can end up in mails is if third parties want to track clicks separate from the sender and the sender isn't smart enough to catch it. For example, people who want to include a job listing or some sort of sponsorship or advert in your mail. They'll often use bit.ly, simply because it works fine on Twitter, without realizing it's not a great idea in mail.

Above you said that you didn't sent spam because your recipients opted in. OK. Now you say that these email newsletters contain third-party advertising. You're sending paid advertising in an email. I would consider that to be spam, even if I opted in to your newsletter. I accept the fact that not everyone would define it that way, but I hope you see my point.

So advertising is now considered "spam"? Why do you think sites have newsletters?

If you go to a web site and there is paid advertising on the web site, do you consider the web site spam? You opted in to the web site by going to it and you can always not go back. You opted in to the newsletter by subscribing and can always unsubscribe if the total content isn't valuable enough. It's the same thing.

I see your point in so far as that it's fine to come up with and use one's own definitions for words, although every widely accepted definition of e-mail "spam" includes a criterion of being unsolicited. For example, in:

* law (e.g. CAN-SPAM or the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003) - indeed CAN-SPAM even stands for Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography And Marketing Act and reflects the US government's position, the EU's regulations refer to 'unsolicited communications' - http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2003/2426/regulation/22/m...

* encyclopedia (say, Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spamming - or the Encyclopedia Britannica - http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/941678/spam)

* dictionaries (say, Websters - http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/spam - or the Oxford - http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/spam)

* technical standards (say, RFC2505 - http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2505)

* the viewpoint of people extremely against spam, such as Spamhaus - http://www.spamhaus.org/consumer/definition/ or SpamCop - http://www.spamcop.net/fom-serve/cache/14.html

* the terms and conditions of e-mail service providers and senders - e.g. http://mailchimp.com/legal/terms/

Some of the replies you got with knee-jerk reactions about spam are truly ridiculous. People are just spouting nonsense without any idea about what you do. I hope you aren't letting them get to you. I enjoy your newsletters.

to track whether people open them or not

To signal spam content ;)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com