11.04.05
Private Del.icio.us Bookmarklet Not So Private
In the last four days, the Private Del.icio.us Bookmarklet has been getting a lot of attention.
I post this merely as a warning: the Private Del.icio.us Bookmarklet is misnamed. It really should have been named “The Anonymous Del.icio.us Bookmarklet”.
If you’d like to see what people have been using the bookmarklet for, just visit the Private.Bookmarks del.icio.us account.
You’ll notice I tested the bookmarklet on my del.icio.us inbox. You might also notice that a number of links are posted which require a username or password, or are otherwise unaccessible. My theory is that these links were never intended to be shared in a place where search engines could find them, which is exactly where they now are.
If you want to be able to bookmark a link on del.icio.us without that link being visible to the outside world, this bookmarklet is not for you. If you want a way to anonymously bookmark an embarassing link on del.icio.us, send it to everyone.
Alex Bosworth said,
November 4, 2005 at 5:36 pm
del.icio.us robots.txt disallows search engines, but your point is still taken.
only WHO posted them is private, not the fact that the URL exists.
If you want really private bookmarks, there is an encrypted bookmark thing floating around, or pretty soon del.icio.us will ship real private bookmarks.
Danny Dawson said,
November 4, 2005 at 6:02 pm
And that, sir, I eagerly await.
Lucanos said,
November 5, 2005 at 1:26 am
An additional problem with the “private.bookmarks” workaround is that you are not able to delete bookmarks created through this service.
For some reason del.icio.us allows people to send you links, but doesn’t let you (the reciever) remove the “for:XXX” tag from the listing.
Kind of like letting people send you emails, but not letting you delete them from your inbox…
Alex Bosworth said,
November 9, 2005 at 2:18 pm
My problem with allowing you to be able to delete private bookmarks is that I have no idea if you actually own the account, so being able to delete private bookmarks would mean that anyone could delete them.
Of course they would need to know the exact URL and user who bookmarked something, so maybe it’s ok.
I have published the source now under gpl, so if you want to run your own private bookmarking service or build this feature in and send it to me ;) you can.
Mike said,
November 15, 2005 at 2:51 am
If private bookmarks are really important to you, you might like to try www.BlinkList.com. We fully support both private and public bookmarks. Mike