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You might not be incredibly tech-savvy and wondered (just like me) why sometimes on websites e-mail addresses are spelled something like: "(remove_this_bit)luca@bitful.com", or "mailatbitfuldotcom". It's simply in order to prevent crawling applications from going through your code, identify any email addresses there are in it and inundate you with junk mail.

A few days ago I was snooping around some website's source code (as I normally do when I want to find out how things work) and I saw that the email address was spelled with HTML characters (you know, those
mail thingies). I did the same with my text editor and it does seem to work, as I have noticed a decrease in junk mail to my bitful mailbox over the past week.

If your text editor does not show you a list of HTML characters (I personally use Textpad), you may find the whole table here.

Apparently simply replacing the "@" with the special HTML character "&#649" will not eradicate the problem entirely, as spiders can detect it and replace it, as this article points out. I have a feeling that replacing the whole email address with special HTML characters may prove more effective, and it's easier to implement and more browser-friendly than using Javascript to do it.

I do not disapprove entirely of this widespread marketing practice, which might give some results if properly targeted, but sorry, I do not want bigger breasts, I do not need a mortgage yet and teeny lolitas certainly do not stir my nether parts in the slightest.