[lreeves]

No kidding. Clearly they're using IIS, which has the equivalents of mod_rewrite built-in. Why would they keep using such awful URLs? The only other major company still using cruft like that I can think of is IBM. Totally unnecessary.

[jonursenbach]

Amazon is up there too.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003O6G5TW/ref=s9_hps_bw_g6...

[mbreese]

At least with Amazon, all you need is: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003O6G5TW

Which isn't too bad...

[cpeterso]

Or even: http://amazon.com/dp/B003O6G5TW

or: http://amzn.com/B003O6G5TW

[greyfade]

Luckily, everything from /ref= on is optional, and the alphanumeric code that comes after product is an actual product code. Replace it with the 9-digit ISBN for a book, and you'll get the book, for example.

[xtacy]

Google too:

https://plus.google.com/107117483540235115863/

[jonknee]

That's intentional. They'd rather not give out a bunch of Google Accounts usernames (which would also be a lot of Gmail users).