A rumour has been circulating that people should not use the URL shortening service Bit.ly because, the rumour goes, Bit.ly somehow benefits the Libyan government. Other than the fact that the government of Libya gets the registration fee for the domain ($75.00 a year), Bit.ly does not benefit the regime of Moammar Gadhafi.

Spammers and malware pushers have turned in increasing numbers to the URL shortening services such as TinyURL, SNURL, bit.ly and is.gd as a way of getting by spam filters that recognize the actual URLs to spam and malware sites.