I am not sure when it happened, but at some point, bit.ly marked all URLs to connect.microsoft.com as dangerous.  So for example, I created this shortened link http://bit.ly/fKKQPT which just goes to http://web.archive.org/web/*/https://connect.microsoft.com/sql/.  When you click on the shortened link, you get the following warning (click to embiggen):

Unfortunately, bit.ly is the default URL shortening service in tweetdeck, and a lot of people don't even realize what is happening when people click on the links that have been shortened on their behalf. The clickers may not ultimately click through to the link because of the big red hand (or because they can't find the link way down the page).  In several cases I have seen quite knowledgeable folks follow up on a connect link suggesting that the link was bad or must have been mangled.  And worse yet, some people may suddenly think I'm a bad guy distributing phishing or other dangerous links.  Not cool.

Now, I like some of the benefits that bit.ly provides, such as optional link customization, API integration into tweetdeck, detailed stats and aggregation, etc.  But until the global "all connect URLs are poison" ban has been lifted I, for one, have changed my URL shortening service to is.gd: