Here’s an interesting factoid. Panera Bread, the national bakery and cafe chain, has blocked all Bit.ly links from users who happen to be using Panera’s free WiFi. In a tweet to user who was inquiring about the issue, Panera’s official Twitter handle responded that the coffee shops have “blocked b/c link is hidden & can’t determine content. Want to keep a friendly-family environment for all.” Hmm.
It appears that Panera has also blocked many of the other popular URL shorteners as well. It’s true that a short URL obscures the target address and present opportunities for spammers, but many URL shorteners offer previews of the longer links or content to mitigate the chance of accessing a site you don’t want to visit.
And Bit.ly has its own protection against harmful links and recently started warning users of potentially malicious, based on information it has about URLs being shortened. Bit.ly will warn users who are accessing potentially malicious sites with a message that reads, “Warning – this site has been flagged and may contain unsolicited content. The content of this web page appears to contain spam, or links to unsolicited or undesired sites.” The URL shortener will then suggest to users to close the page. We’re fairly sure that Starbucks let’s you access shortened links off of their paid WiFi service.
This brings the question, is Net Neutrality applicable to individuals. Do we want not only ISPs, but individual people like Panera and Websense to limit our ability to surf the internet.
Don’t like it? Don’t eat there. That’s how capitalism works. If enough people care they’ll get the message.
Panera is a private business. If someone doesn’t like that they block certain content, they are free to go to Starbucks next door. Now you might say how come this argument doesn’t apply to ISPs. It does not because they mostly have monopoly and they built their backbone using tax payer’s money.
As a general rule it works best if you keep gov out of private (Panera like) businesses.
agree, its a private establishment they can do what they want. It be like me going into your house, and giving your kids free pron dvd’s. You can of course pat me down, and search everything i have on me prior to entering, or just not let me enter. Not a big deal here folks.. go somewhere else.
This has nothing whatsoever to do with Net Neutrality. Net Neutrality isn’t going to end all restrictions on the internet everywhere.
“but many URL shorteners offer previews of the longer links or content ”
and many dont which is why they are blocked
url shorteners are plain and simple crappy, and most companies will soon follow suite.
also the final paragraph says bitly protects against malicious sites. they only go through their blacklist, i can go make a bad site, use a URL shortener, and easily bypass this “list”
It seems likely that Panera is attempting to block adult sites, no?
Hey, I’m sure I along with many other people would be more than willing to set them up with a system to show the short URL’s real URL before sending them to the page, using one of the bijillion sites like mine: http://detinyit.com.
Do they also block bit.ly’s clone website j.mp links?
I think this is reasonable for them to do. I mean, it’s reasonable that they would go to some effort to prevent people from surfing stuff that might not be appropriate for everybody in the restaurant.
They _could_ go to a bit more effort to see where those links point to, but then you’re just chasing your tail with all the different link rewriters and this is probably a lot easier.
One time I got Goatse’d via TinyURL.com link in a message board while in the waiting area of a major airport. Was embarrassing.
I spose that’s what they’re trying to protect against. There’s probably a more elegant way to do it, though.
(does anyone still know what goatse is?)
Goatse is one of those images that you can’t forget. Anyone who has seen it will live with it for the rest of their lives
True. I wish I could un-see Goatse.
You can un-see Goatse at this handy URL http://bit.ly/tK4cS
Why don’t they just expand the bit.ly links and then run them against the same filters that they use for everything else.
This is really stupid. If there are specific websites that they want to block, it doesn’t matter if a user is using bit.ly or not. Once it redirects, it will be blocked!
What were they thinking???
Because they are using Sonic Wall and just blocking all “Proxy” servers vs. actually blocking content. Really no different than running OpenDNS. I tweeted about this last week and wonder if I’m the user referenced in this post.
It’s a lame policy, doesn’t stop anyone from visiting adult sites if they really want to as any 14 year old can tell you how to get around blocks like this.
What next, block all competing restaurant chains websites? Can you browse the menu for Subway. Starbucks?
Yeah, this is super retarded. 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?
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…
I’ve also been a loyal customer recently and although this hasn’t stopped me from going back weekly, I do find it annoying (though I have actually seen someone mention going somewhere else to work because of this).
The funny thing is @panerabread and @sonicwall both have used Bit.ly to shorten thier Twitter links.
Wow. Everyone’s whining. I agree with Dan’s point – don’t like it, don’t eat there – or at least pony up for your own 3G broadband or something and stop mooching off cafe’s connections.
It’s not mooching off the cafe, it’s patronizing a cafe that touts free wifi as one of its main features. I know a lot of people who say, “I’m having lunch at Panera because I need to use my computer.”
It’s Panera’s choice how they handle it, but if they are blocking innocent links, and some other place isn’t (such as Starbucks), they may lose customers.
You just have to love the first response is government force of open internet in a private business. If I ran a business I would also proxy out undesirable links.
But I do have to admit there are better ways to do this instead of blocking the bit.ly service. Open DNS is one way…
Why don’t they just add a Bit.ly preview add-on to Panera’s browsers? Let people make their own stupid decisions.
Interesting. I don’t use Panera as a mobile workplace that often, but if I am I need access to the internet, at least the non-porn side of the internet, and it’s entirely possible that what I want to look at might be behind a shortened URL.
The convenience of going someplace to use the net is lost if there’s a chance (however small) that the content you need is going to be blocked for no reason. If I’m choosing to have lunch someplace that has free wifi, I’m going to pick the place where I know they won’t be blocking what I need.
I’m gonna have to jump on the “wow that’s lame” bandwagon. “Don’t like it don’t eat there” doesn’t really apply to mebecause I’ve never even heard of this place, but that doesn’t mean I can’t have an opinion about it.
It’s just one of those things that I’m guessing was decided upon by some bonehead who doesn’t really understand the internet. Bit.ly and other shortener links are a fact of life these days. Anyone who uses Twitter will find the internet to be severely crippled when browsing at this place.
I am sure they gave it some good thought before making the decision and there was probably good reason for doing it. There are so many sites that are automatically using bit.ly to shorten links though that they might be hurting themselves. Also would like to see you add the new http://twittley.com Wordpress Plugin Colors Button to your blog posts. Here is a good article http://techpati...lors-digg-style
how these short url services make money?
anyone?
a) selling statistics
b) custom branding
Selling statistics -> much money. If they offer user accounts it’s more interesting (linked user data).
Also some offer custom branding and all this stuff. Bit.ly already allows custom domains (just create a CNAME record to bit.ly).
Anyway, running a url shortener isn’t that expensive.
I think all companies have their public url shortener just for PR.
1. Panera bread is a private business offering free wi-fi. they can only allow users to visit their company site and msn.com if they wish.
2. URL shorteners are going to destroy the web. so good on ya panera, if even it’s for different reasons.
3. why do americans always seem to bitch about shit they get for free?
“3. why do americans always seem to bitch about shit they get for free?”
Because the second they get it they assume its a god given right and that no one has the right to mess with it.
It is the same at any retail store you work at. They provide lunch for you but you must provide your own drink and people will bitch about the drink and not say thank you for the food!
What can you expect from the ‘Bready Bunch’?
Nice journalism
This isn’t new. I’ve not been able to access links shortened by most services in Panera for almost a year, if not longer.
Hi there, I’m posting this from Panera’s WiFi, and also accessed this link via it’s shortened bit.ly url.
This is why I hate URL shortening services. Instead of attacking Panera, how about asking Twitter to get rid of their character limit so we don’t need URL shorteners in the first place?! That’s why sharing on Facebook is so much better than sharing on Twitter.
Exactly. Amen to that.
So, the answer to your displeasure with Panera’s restrictions on free wifi service is that Twitter changes their business model. Sure, that makes sense.
haha nice reply
Horrible solution to a non-existent problem. I eat and work at Panera several times a week. If they choose to continue this policy, my local restaurants are going to lose the hundreds of dollars I spend there each year.
This seems kind of…pointless? They’re not blocking content they find objectionable; they’re blocking content that may or may not be perfectly innocent. One doesn’t have to resort to link shorteners to find content Panera wouldn’t necessarily want in their stores. Maybe I’m unaware of some massive rash of bit.ly porn links. All the ones I’ve ever followed are from my friends on Twitter to perfectly normal things like XKCD. Okay, maybe normal isn’t the best word there, but still.
If it’s security issue about hidden url, can’t they parse and redirect the request from, for example http://bit.ly/CbwxH to http://bit.ly/info/CbwxH ?
… can they? Or is it too expensive?
It seems like Panera’s techs don’t quite understand the internet.
Sites like bit.ly just issue redirects to the proper web site. This means that when you click on a bit.ly link, bit.ly doesn’t show you the content from that site; it just tells your browser to go look at the actual site.
So if Panera would like to block particular content, they can just block the content. Users will still be blocked from visiting the “bad” web sites, whether they go through a redirector or not.
exactly. I work for Panera and can use a lot of url-shorteners — they don’t block them all — but SonicWall is paranoid, and from personal experience, I can tell you that Panera is extremely techno-stupid and internet-ignorant at the highest levels.
I would expound on your point about being redirected and then blocked, but there’s no more to say!! that’s it — if the redirected site is bad, then it will be blocked. And you know what? It is. To get around this, when I’m in Panera, I turn on the link shrink expander on TweetDeck and I’m fine.
FYI, not EVERY Panera has the exact same SonicWall restrictions.
Stupid. When you click on a shortened link, your browser get told to redirect to the actual destination URL. That process causes your browser to make another perfectly normal request through their network (the same as if you had typed in the URL directly). There’s no reason at all to block bit.ly or any other shortening service because anything “bad” still gets blocked in the usual way after the redirect happens. Duh.
This is the problem with URL shorteners… Don’t blame Panera for protecting /their/ internet access points, as well as their patrons.
Thats why I wrote http://mug.gd, to show just how bad they can be.
It is a norm for us who live in China and we have solution to the problem – http://is.gd/4s88t I think it is about time for the rest of the world use their own secure access to all blocked websites whenever they go all the time. so, no one know where you surf and what you see.
That is crazy. They should know that the 2nd most popular social site has 95% of their links based on the shortner.
Panera… please reconsider this decision.
Where is it blocked at? could you get around it by setting your computer to use OpenDNS?
“We’re fairly sure that Starbucks let’s you access shortened links off of their paid WiFi service.”
Good reporting.
Leena,
Thank you for the scoop on this story! I would not have known about it, otherwise, and have added it to my franchise blog.
Ridiculous.
The Franchise King
Joel Libava
the irony of all of this is that the @panera twitter feed was using bit.ly for their links, and then people started saying “um hey, we are IN a Panera and can’t access them? What gives?” So that’s what started this entire brouhaha.
I work for Big Bread (higher up than your everyday sandwich-maker) and have had so many face-palms when it comes to their technophobia and ignorance about the internet — at the highest levels, mind you. I really really want them to get it — I do! I’d love to do that for them. But it’s sad to see them acting like the equivalent of your grandma on the internet.
I’m sitting in a Panera in Rochester, NY and bit.ly links are working just fine. (phew!)
I discovered this on Friday when I was @workshifting from Panera. It was frustrating to not only not be able to view links, but not be able to shorten using Tweetdeck as well. Same deal for TinyURL. To shorten links, I found a work around with less popular URL shorteners like Shortn.me. But when I really need to get busy on twitter, I moved to Barnes & Noble. When they are delivering a free service, they have a right to set certain parameters. It is up to the consumer to determine what action we want to take.
Seen the latest “oh shoot” stop gap tweet from Amy the company’s official tweeter? http://bit.ly/48sVt2.
How about a simple sign on the door – “Twitter use discouraged”.
PS
Can’t believe the comments above from staff biting the hand that feeds them. Careful, Panera might learn how to Google soon!