 What
is "Spam Protected"?
All of the email addresses included on the region 10 site are spam protected.
"Spammers" (the people that send the junk mail), send out a spam "bot"
(automated program) that searches the internet for pages that
include email addresses. The bot looks into the code that
creates the web page (you can too by selecting view/source from your
browser menu) and searches out the code containing an email address.
Then it reports the address back to the owner of the bot and your
email address is sold to list companies and then to spammers.
For instance, on most pages when you see a name that is an email link, you
can't see the email address unless you click on the name and start
to send an email. The actual coding that the bot sees looks
something like:
<a href="mailto:johnsmith@smith.com">John
Smith</a>
The bot knows to grab the "johnsmith@smith.com"
from the code and send it back to the owner. That is what
usually happens.
On this site, the code behind the scenes is protected and looks something like:
<a href="mailto:Region1">John
Smith</a>
This is unrecognizable to the bots and is therefore passed over.
I've gone one step further to protect this site. On the home page of
pvsports, at the very bottom row (you can't see it unless you run
your mouse over it, is a white lettered link to:
http://www.pvsports.com/mailto.asp
Go ahead and click on it and read the story. Basically, it supplies
spam bots with plenty of random, no good email addresses and then
links to itself and produces another page full of bad addresses. It
doesn't take long for spammers to realize that the site is full of
bad email addresses and they blacklist the site so as to not waste their
time or fill their boxes with bad email addresses.
Another easy way for spammers to get your email address is to send
out email jokes and chain letters that get passed around and then
forwarded with a full list of email addresses in them (I'm sure
you've gotten a few of those, you have to scroll through hundreds of
forwards and email addresses to get to the good stuff). Even company newsletters that go out from
a secretary have
everyone listed in the "To:" field. The addresses should all be put
in the "BCC:" field to keep our addresses from being passed around.
I hope this tutorial will ease some of your fears about having your
email addresses listed on this site.
Scott "Oz" Osborn (webslave)
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