So many discussion forums and technical assistance sites, including yours, ask for an email address to post comments, and yet friends tell me never to put my real address in. Sometimes I need to include my email address as part of my comment or question, but I'm told that's even worse! Why is that, and what should I do? The why is easy. The what to do? Not so much. Why is it a bad idea? In a word, spam. Anything that will put your email address on to a publicly accessible web page will, in all likelihood, cause you to start getting more and more and more and more spam. Why? Because one technique that spammers use is to visit all the web pages that they can, and collect anything that looks like an email address to add to their mailing list. Here's an example: muchspam@ask-leo.com - now that I've published that email address on the web on this page, even though it's the only place that email address has or will be officially mentioned, it will now start getting spammed. Just because it was published on a web page, and it looks like a valid email address. So when you include your email address in an on-line posting - say on a discussion board, or even in a comment here on Ask Leo!, you're almost literally asking for spam. Don't do it. In my case, you'll notice that in order to post a comment on Ask Leo!, you're required to provide an email address. But notice also, that that email address is not published on the web page (in my case, if you use a valid email address, it's simply a way for me to follow up with you directly should I have a question about your comment). But be careful - not all weblogs and discussion forums hide your email address. Many turn right around and put it on the web page for all to see. Including the spammers. Before you post anywhere be sure you know what's going to happen to your email address when you do. Are you a member of a mailing list? Does that mailing list have an on-line archive? Then your email address may be available to the spammers for harvesting. Ever post on Usenet? The email you used is probably already in the spammer's lists. An early Usenet post "before I knew better" is the reason my wife gets hundreds of spam per day. So use a fake address - or better yet, don't use one at all. Now, what if you need to post your email address in a publicly accessible place? There are several techniques for obfuscating the address. Here are a couple of my favorites: askleo at gmail.com The first you've probably seen already in other places. It simply requires that you, as a human, realize that the " at " needs to be replaced with "@". My fear is that this technique is also fairly easy to decode by computer, and the spammers will soon catch on. The second requires some thought. If you sound out "seeohem", you'll realize that it sounds like c, o, m. "com". Hence you realize that the ".seeohem" really means ".com" and can make that translation when you type in the email address. The biggest drawback to these approaches is that the email links are not clickable. Anything you can click on to get an email address, the spammers can use to harvest it. Even copy-paste doesn't work, for exactly the same reason. But protecting yourself from spam is important. And not asking for more, is even more important. Related:
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I used to protect my email address, so that I wouldn't get any spam, but by the time I learned about how spam works it was too late for me to prevent it. That resulted in me having to install programs that would filter spam away, but it was still client side so I had to download the 100+ spam mails each day. Then I switched to a provider that did the spam filtering for me on their server, and this has resulted in a dramatic drop in spam mails. I actually tell people now that they shouldn’t hide their e-mail addresses if they have server side spam protection, because that would kind of mean that your valid e-mail address is being held hostage by spammers, and I refuse to let those mail terrorists prevent me from being open with my e-mail address. They'll probably catch on to seeohem eventually too. And writing it on three different lines or adding spaces. Try writing it in a picture or setting up a hotmail account especially. Posted by: jodie at January 29, 2006 08:49 PMI recently did a search on all major people search and record searches and was amazed that not only did my (supposed to be restricted) number and address show up on the people searches but my name, age, and location showed up on the record searches with an offer for whatever price to see all my (non-existant lol) criminal record, possible roomates, and financial records. How did all of this information become visible on the net? I have tried in vain to go to every website possible and remove my listings and although they tell they will they never do, and as well I cannot sit and sift through EVERY SINGLE website because there are hundreds! Is there an easier, more effective way to just remove myself from ALL of these websites? Posted by: Brooke at February 16, 2006 05:55 PMNot that I'm aware of. Posted by: Leo at February 18, 2006 08:12 PMThere are places like www.addressmunger.com that help you encode your email address so that it's less visible to spam bots. Posted by: mike at June 29, 2006 10:19 AMhello leo i have truble with delete google bar from my computer. when i open google than typing word it show me the old word i had type from befor. now how i can delete it from my Msn Explorer not from internet Explorer. if you can help me please thanks Posted by: karim at September 27, 2006 07:51 PMGood point on not using your real email address in your newsgroup posts. This can lead to a lot of spam. -David recently a couple of people added me on msn. i think because i typed my msn addy on yahooanswer to help a person. i asked one of the person hu added me and he said he typed 'girls msn address' on google. how do i get rid of it from the web? Posted by: Chani at December 2, 2007 07:57 AMPost a comment on "Why shouldn't I post my email address in a public forum?":
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