Flow-to.com
As I’ve been wading knee-deep in help wanted ads and announcements for writers and editors to see how best to package and present this info here, it’s become plainly obvious how easy it is for spammers to harvest email addresses — many ads use (from the looks of it) someone’s real everyday use email address as a contact method.
Many of you do that too on your sites and blogs. And you all wonder why you get so much spam.
Not a problem if you use a service like SpamArrest or its ilk (the best way to go for “What, me worry?” distribution of your email address wherever and to whomever you feel like it). But that option costs a little.
Then I remembered a free service provided by another friend of mine, super programmer William Bontrager. His Flow-to.com site lets you automatically create and assign a spam-harvest-proof link to your email address. Just use that link on your online ads and announcements, sites and/or blogs instead of your actual email address.
For example, here’s a test link I just set up to demonstrate the service. Click on it, and it will launch your email software, which you can then use to send me an email without knowing my actual address (and no, smarty pants, this isn’t merely an alias):
http://flow-to.com/email/w1195165627lrqdsf2x.mth
Click on that link and see how the service automatically generates a single-use temporary email address and launches your email software. I’ll get the message, but you won’t know which of my addresses it was sent to.
Works like a charm. And it’s free.
If you want a more worry-free no conscious effort solution, particularly for any address that has already been previously been harvested by spammers, check out SpamArrest. But for something to use mainly on your websites, blogs, and/or any online ads/announcements, Flow-to.com fits the bill perfectly. Highly recommended!
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One Response to “Flow-to.com”
By Will Bontrager on Nov 16, 2007 | Reply
Wow, thank you, Eldon.
Not much more I can say. I appreciate you spreading the word. And others will, too, once they see how good the service really is.
The harvest-proof URL can be published anywhere any other URLs can be published — forum posts, discussion lists, blogs, web pages (excellent for “contact us” pages), newsgroup postings, ezines.
Will