Livejournal rewriting links

[armb]

So Livejournal can bother to write the javascript that rewrites the hover-over URL to disguise the fact they are rewriting links through a tracker, losing any affilate information in the process, but not bother to check it isn't screwing unintended links?

http://james-nicoll.livejournal.com/2307830.html
http://filkerdave.livejournal.com/988852.html

There are still lots of people I want to read here, but I'm glad Dreamwidth exists as an alternative....

[EDIT: I have no objection to LJ trying to make money off me while me giving free hosting, and in fact I haven't been affected by this bug. But I do dislike the way they've gone about it. At least they've admitted they screwed up and backed out the "feature".]

Comments

[filklore-on-lj.livejournal.com]

I take your point about making money in exchange for free hosting. However, they were doing it to paid accounts as well.

It's things like this that makes me glad I keep my main blog fully under my control on my own domain, and only republish to LJ for LJ'rs convenience. It means, should LJ continue to do things like this, I can walk away in an instant, and not lose anything, other than some readers (who can always find my main blog anyway, if they want to).

[armb.livejournal.com]

> However, they were doing it to paid accounts as well.

And I think that people who do have paid accounts objecting to having it done at all, even if it had been done transparently and with advance warning, is more reasonable.

I'm not worried about losing the existing contents of this blog if I walk away. But I'd lose the ability to read and comment on friend-locked entries in friends' journals, and commenting on public posts while not logged in and having to remember to use a .sig is irritating.