Thank you so much! Worked perfectly. Cheers :-)

Jordan is of course right on the money (as usual), but be aware that you are exposing the email recipient to the risk of lots of spam by having their address appear within the page source. You might want to consider one of the email obfuscation/encryption add-ons, some of which are free...

http://www.concrete5.org/marketplace/addons/encrypted-e-mail-addres...

http://www.concrete5.org/marketplace/addons/email-obfuscator/...

http://www.concrete5.org/marketplace/addons/recaptcha-mail-hide/...

Just be aware that not all methods of encryption are equal and thus might not provide adequate protection.

-Steve

Depending on which email program you use, I might not worry about obfuscating the address. If you use Apple Mail (the default on OS X) or Gmail, the spam filtering is good enough that you don't have to worry about this. Outlook I think has terrible spam filters so then it might be more important. Been a while since I've used hotmail or yahoo mail so I can't speak to those.

Just as an example, I post my email as-is all over the place (here on the forums, on my own website, etc.) and I don't have any problems with that because anything spammy just gets filtered out by my email program (Apple Mail on OSX).

Hi Jordan,

> Depending on which email program you use...

Why even worry about which email program you or a client uses when obfuscation is a simple, prudent and effective measure to take? Besides, many folks access their email from different locations using different email clients (mobile, web-based, local, etc).

Also, and perhaps more importantly, just because you're not seeing the spam doesn't mean it isn't being sent. Why even make the address available to harvesters and contribute to unnecessary network traffic and resource utilization. Simple effective (and free) obfuscation takes the problem on more directly.

Filters are not without their problems either. I've read much about folks having to constantly tweak them because they become less and less effective and/or they experience lots of "false positives" - i.e. legitimate mail that gets flagged as spam.

Of course, that doesn't mean the various obfuscation techniques might not be rendered ineffective some day, but for now, it seems to be a cheap, quick, and effective measure to take - at least in my experience.

I guess I'm just seeing the issue from a very different perspective.

-Steve

I guess it comes down to how good your spam filter is :)

I am certainly not saying that you shouldn't use obfuscation techniques, rather I'm saying that you don't *need* to use them. The downsides are that your markup is not semantic and someone who is visually impaired won't be able to see the address (nor will anyone else who doesn't have javascript enabled for some reason). In effect, you're making it harder on some users just so that life is easier for you (less spam in your inbox). My take on it is you should do everything you can to make it as easy as possible for anyone to contact you, and it's up to you to deal with the burden of spam.

Also there's the question of whether this obfuscation even works -- I mean, if the browser can interpret the javascript to show the actual address, then so can any spam harvesting program.

This blog post does a good job of explaining the issues as well (although it is more focused more on the "me [at] domain [dot] com" style obfuscations, but down near the bottom it mentions javascript techniques):
http://jasonpriem.com/2009/05/stop-obfuscating-email/...

-Jordan

> I am certainly not saying that you shouldn't use obfuscation techniques, rather
> I'm saying that you don't *need* to use them.

Of course you don't "need" to use them. It's not a question of "need".

> someone who is visually impaired won't be able to see the address

That's perhaps the most compelling reason to avoid not only email obfuscation but JS altogether. Too bad the accessibility standards and assistive technologies are so incompatible with the latest web standard and development techniques. :-/

> (nor will anyone else who doesn't have javascript enabled for some reason).

You are absolutely correct, but you have to consider the target audience for the site. Most of the time, that's a trade-off I'm more than willing to make.

> In effect, you're making it harder on some users...

Only IF those users are unable or unwilling to deal with JS. Not every website is designed/intended for everyone who accesses the web; nor is email the only means of contact.

> My take on it is you should do everything you can to make it as easy as possible
> for anyone to contact you, and it's up to you to deal with the burden of spam.

My take on it is that if I can make it as easy as possible for those interested in contacting me to do so while at the same time preventing spam without much effort on my part, then that's the route I'll take. Plus, as mentioned previously, email is just one (albeit an important one) means of contact / communication.

> Also there's the question of whether this obfuscation even works...

You seem to be lumping all obfuscation techniques together with that statement. There's little question obfuscation can work. The question is how well, and that depends on which obfuscation technique you use and how badly the "bad guys" want your address.

> I mean, if the browser can interpret the javascript to show the actual address, then so can any spam harvesting program.

True, but in actual practice, it likely rarely happens, as it would require more resources (computing power, time, and money) to actually render the page to snag an address. But as I hinted, this could become irrelevant in the future if email spam remains profitable and as computing resources become cheaper.

So I guess it comes down to the fact that you are content pulling across the spam and having it expunged, while I'm quite pleased with the fact that I never even have to pull it across the connection at all.

-Steve

Agreed on all counts.
And I think we may have overwhelmed the OP :)

One last thing I want to mention is that there is a fundamental difference between obfuscation and encryption. The former does indeed place a burden on the user or site visitor to mentally "decipher" the address. The latter, at least in the implementation I've adopted, does nothing of the sort. The user sees the address on the page and can click it or copy and paste it just like any text or link on the page AS LONG AS they have JS enabled.

Anyway, I'll shut up now...

:-O

-Steve

I am having a similar problem with embedding e-mail addresses and would like some help from the community if anyone has any ideas.

For some time as I recall, we linked names of employees with their e-mail addresses in the "mailto:" format. Now, when we click on these from multiple different browsers and computers, nothing happens!

Any idea why that might be happening?