A couple of recent posts have included URLs that were edited like this:

www(dot)209radio(dot)co(dot)uk

and

http://www(dot)rte(dot)ie/radio1/thelatesession/

I know why email addresses on web pages are disguised in this way -- to keep them from being collected by web-crawling robots that assemble mailing lists for spam -- but I can't think of any reason why public web page URLs should be given similar treatment.

If I've missed this lesson in spam-proofing, could someone please enlighten me?

Or, in the alternative, could we agree to post live URLs?

Michael,

I couldn't agree more with you. I always post live URLs, and cannot understand why anybody else wouldn't, it is much more helpful.


Likewise.

The silly thing is that it's trivial to write a program that converts "(dot)" to "." -- a most obvious and common substitution -- as it does its search. That particular trick is about like locking your door to keep out burglars, then putting the spare key under the door mat. They know exactly what to look for.

As far as I am informed, SPAM (unwanted mail) only applies to mail addresses and not to URL's. If we really should disguise URL's, it should be the end of internet, because direct linking from page to page via URL is the basis of the web(dot)(dot)(dot)

Thanks guys, I guess I just erred on the side of safety. It's not fun typing all those (dot)s