urllib interpretation of URL with ".."

Here's a URL, found in a link, which gives us trouble
when we try to follow the link:

http://sportsbra.co.uk/../acatalog/shop.html

Browsers immediately turn this into

http://sportsbra.co.uk/acatalog/shop.html

and go from there, but urllib tries to open it explicitly, which
results in an HTTP error 400.

Is "urllib" wrong?

John Nagle
.