Google Smart Links: Another Web Address Shortening Service with Hidden Dangers?

Google announced a feature they call smart links for Gmail on the iPhone and Android phones…

The Iterative Web App: Links Got Shorter and Smarter

It takes long giant uninterpretable web addresses that are often pasted into email messages and converts them to a manageable human-readable (and understandable) hotlink. But, don’t get too excited, it doesn’t deal with any arbitrary URL yet. It only works with:

- Google Maps address queries
- Google Maps directional queries (with one destination)
- Google Sites webpages
- YouTube videos

It seems like a good start. But, I worry that it expanding its service to arbitrary links may someday mask potentially dangerous web links. This is the same kind of concern currently being voiced about the URL shortners which have been popular and necessary for micro-blogging on services like Twitter.

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