[LINK] Email Obfuscation Helps Spammers: Google returns 27 million results for "* at * dot com"

[Ivan Trundle]

On 17/06/2007, at 2:23 PM, Kim Holburn wrote:

> http://typewriting.org/2006/06/19/Email_Obfuscation_Helps_Spammers/
>
>> Email Obfuscation Helps Spammers
>>
>> Some people think email obfuscation is a good way to fight spam,  
>> <snip>

>> Google returns 27 million results for "* at * dot com". That's 27  
>> million email addresses waiting to be spammed. Google doesn’t  
>> allow you to search for the "@" sign, so that’s 27 million email  
>> addresses that wouldn’t be available on Google if they were not  
>> obfuscated.

<snip>

All this tells me is that using "at * dot com" is not a good way to  
hide an address, that's all. I agree in principle that if you want to  
hide an e-mail address, you don't put it on a public website. But for  
the countless millions who want to publicise their e-mail address,  
but NOT to spammers, there are other ways. It just depends on how  
inventive you want to be.

After searching too many Australian government websites recently to  
find a particular person's e-mail address, I came to the conclusion  
that most government departments are actively pursuing the former  
path, not the latter. Mind you, with people transferring jobs every   
time you blink (in and out of government), it hardly matters.

iT