Social networking are contributing to an explosion in the number of services that help people convert long URLs into tiny Web links. URL shrinking services are especially useful on sites that place a premium on brevity — such as Twitter, which limits tweets to 140 characters. But few online communities have made it easy for users to tell where the shortened links will take them, a reality that could be advantageous to phishers and other cyber crooks. When I first began researching this subject, I was amazed to learn how many URL shortening services are available today (at least 90). Also, the lack of a built-in or standardized approach to URL shortening services within individual social networking sites adds complexity to the problem. For example, many Twitter users shorten long Web links with bit.ly, but Twitter users are just as likely to see Tweets with links shortened by the services