Well, although a rather harsh dictatorship, Libya was at the time one (bit.ly was registered in 2008) of the more stable and prosperous countries of the region, and had been normalizing its international relations for some time. That was just after he had been received in France, erecting his tent on the lawn of the state guesthouse next to the French presidential palace.
I don't think many people expected the dramatical events that occurred soon after.
But it's true, I personally think one should never use the TLD of a dictatorship or unstable country for obvious ethical reasons and for future-proofing a business.
Cool visualizations on your site, by the way.
That, or add “.info” at the end, e.g. goo.gl/FOOBAR.info
Many other URL shorteners copied Google and Bitly’s approach so adding “+” or “.info” at the end of short URLs usually reveals the hidden redirection without hitting the final website.
I believe the job-listing identifier was always unique because I eventually got an email from this recruiter which instead contained a bit.ly link, presumably because it rendered me unable to remove the tracking information. I did not click on that link. That was also the last email I received from that person, cementing the idea in my mind that he was "on to me" affecting their recruitment analytics.
Sometimes I think back on that time and smile, knowing that I caused some difficulty -- however small -- for someone working in business intelligence with my dumb anti-tracking antics. Admittedly, they did successfully track some of my behavior but they had to do it manually with a human thinking critically so I'll call it a win.
Anyway, the point of the story is that I didn't click the URL-shortened link because they're shady AF and often used for the specific purpose of hiding details about the URL. Tracking is a rather benign "abuse" of this but there are other practical concerns with malicious domains.