There has been some outrage about Digg’s new DiggBar. The argument goes, that is is wrong to disguise the URL of the page you are reading because the URL is an important indicator in web culture (for a number of reasons). And the DiggBar essentially hijacks bookmarks. In addition, there are some misgivings about the idea of Digg branding content to look like it is from Digg.

People are using a number of tricks to thwart this new service including specifically detecting the bar and disabling frames altogether. Some argue if it is worth it to block the bar while Reddit users are having a field day tearing Digg down over it and offering the latest hack.

They are right—the DiggBar is evil. My point, however, is that Facebook has been doing this for a while and I have not seen the same reaction from the community. Did the outrage over it slip by me? Or did Facebook’s referral bar just slip under the radar despite their 200 million users? Is it because they have not offered it as a short URL service? Is it because they are currently not selling ads on it?

…what gives?

Facebook referral bar in action.

Update on Frame-Busting

I can’t stop reading about this topic. New posts are showing up everywhere. And a common misconception keeps popping up–that the only way to selectively detect the DiggBar (or any frame-jacker) is to do it server side. The consensus seems to be that in Javascript, all out frame-busting is your only option. Of course, it’s not. Javascript has a prefectly good regex engine.

The following Javascript snippet combines John Gruber’s infamous tactic with the frame busting method.

<script type='text/javascript'>
if ( top.location.href.match(/http:\/\/digg.com\/\w{1,8}\/*(\?.*)?$/ )) {
alert( "DiggBar is evil!" );
top.location.href=self.location.href;
}
</script>

Certainly, this technique suffers from all of the limitations of the Javascript frame-busting technique. But it is an option many seem to be overlooking.