

Why do people still say name AT domain.com? - jmillerinc

I can't remember the last time I saw someone list their email address on a blog or home page as name@domain.com.<p>Are spam bots still fooled by name AT domain.com?<p>Or is it for some other reason?<p>And Gmail seems to be so good at filtering out spam anyway, what's the point of hiding?
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natfriedman
I've listed my email address as nat@nat.org on my web page for years and gmail
only lets in a few spam a day. I tweet it regularly too, and I'm not drowning
in spam. I don't think there's any point in continuing to do this. From my
perspective, spam is a problem Google solved for me.

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jolan
Because they don't know how to do this:

<a
href="javascript:location='mailto:\u006a\u006f\u006c\u0061\u006e\u0040\u0067\u006f\u0072\u006D\u0073\u0062\u0079\u002e\u0063\u006f\u006d';void%200">email
me</a>

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fr0man
I get a good deal of spam from any unfiltered accounts I post as
name@domain.com. In fact the only Nigerian scams I ever received came from
doing that. name[AT]domain.com is an easy way to prevent some of that for
someone (e.g. a non-technical person doing a blog) without the javascript
obfuscation code handy, or else without the know-how to use it.

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stefanobernardi
In plain text I use name @t domain d0t com while on my blog and websites I use
a simple js script: <SCRIPT TYPE="text/javascript"> <!-- // protected email
script by Joe Maller // JavaScripts available at <http://www.joemaller.com> //
this script is free to use and distribute // but please credit me and/or link
to my site

emailE='domain.com' emailE=('name' + '@' + emailE) document.write('or <A
href="mailto:' + emailE + '">email me</a>.')

//--> </script>

<NOSCRIPT> <em>Email address protected by JavaScript.<BR> Please enable
JavaScript to contact me.</em> </NOSCRIPT>

~~~
underdesign
Really? I need javascript to contact you? Too bad! You lost a potential
customer!

~~~
jedsmith
I guess it's to each their own, but I just cannot understand running with
Javascript disabled. Especially with all the sites that rely on Ajax-like
technologies and such...maybe it's just me?

I think by disabling Javascript for yourself, you're missing out on a _lot_ of
the modern Web.

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nuxi7
Not everyone uses gmail...

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felideon
People don't realize there are better ways than that. Also, if they need to
enter their e-mail address somewhere they can't insert CSS or JavaScript and
aren't sure if it is going to be properly obfuscated when rendered, the only
way is to plain text obfuscate it.

By the way, here is a blog post from 2008:
[http://techblog.tilllate.com/2008/07/20/ten-methods-to-
obfus...](http://techblog.tilllate.com/2008/07/20/ten-methods-to-obfuscate-e-
mail-addresses-compared/)

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zbanks
I've done something with javascript that I'm pretty happy with:

<http://olopede.com/contact/>

Basically, if you have JS turned off, you get "team (.AT.) olopede.com"

But, with JS (which most people have), you get the correct form of the email,
plus a mailto: link.

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damienkatz
I remember reading somewhere that simple email obfuscation can result in more
spam, as advanced bots look for obfuscated emails specifically because they
are more likely to be an actively checked account. Also more advanced bot
operations are more likely to send clever spam to get past your filters.

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donohoe
Those that spell it out do not necessary do it all the same way. I've seen:

jim[at]domain.com

jim( a.t.] domain.com

jim THE WORD AT HERE domain.com

etc. etc.

It might all be for a lost cause but if there is a slim chance at obfuscation
it costs them nothing to try.

~~~
xenophanes
It does have a cost. Humans can't just copy/paste it and hit send.

~~~
weaksauce
I like the javascript solution because humans can just copy and paste while
most bots are not that sophisticated to parse and run the javascript yet.

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andre3k1
I freely give my email address out, but change it every year to avoid spam.

my system is to use the current year...

i.e. currentyear@mydomain.com so, 2010@ycombinator.com

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corin_
My email address and phone number get listed by google in a tonne of press
releases anyway, luckily my company's servers are decent at filtering out spam

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agscala
The worst is when people use forum's [spoiler] tags to hide their email, as if
the bot is LOOKING at the page! haha

