Email grabbing web page?

They have: 2 posts

Joined: Jul 2004

Help me settle an argument. A computer tech friend of mine swears he's heard
and also experienced visiting webpages that have grabbed his email address
and wants to do the same. I told him the only way for a site to get his
address is if he provides it, or if they got it through data mining, or via
other mailing lists, but there is not a way for a web page to grab your
email address when you visit it.

Can any one tell me I'm wrong?

He has: 21 posts

Joined: Jul 2004

Isn't there a Perl Script for that? about a hundred bucks I think....

He has: 1,380 posts

Joined: Feb 2002

Not possible...browsers do not store your email address.

cmonkey's picture

He has: 19 posts

Joined: Jul 2004

rfigley, I believe Davemo~ answered this same question on WMT yesterday, it is possible, sort of, but this kind of info gathering is very shady and unprofessional, if your friend wants to gather email addresses, tell him to set up some sort of opt-in script on his site, let people volunteer their personal info, don't try and trick them into it.

He has: 4 posts

Joined: Jul 2004

I don't think that's at all possible.

However, I understand that there are "spiders" that scan web pages for email addresses found in html code. Which is why I will only publish my email address on my sites with as an image not text.

vexcom's picture

He has: 21 posts

Joined: Jul 2004

There is no way to grab email addresses. If there was I would have thousands of them Wink

Seriously, you can get the ISP and some ISP CGI variables may in someway reveal an email address, but it would be so 1 in a 100 or more type thing it would be impossible.

The only good way is to put part of your info up as a teaser, then request they provide a valid email for the rest of it. We do a thing that gives people a free example report if they join up - that sort of thing works well cause it brings in qualified leads.

Other than that there is no reason to want the email address - who cares about every tom **** and harry coming to your site, you only want to sepnd time with people that are serious.

HTH

- Wesley E. Warren, CEO - Vexcom Advanced Systems Development
Realty-SEO Real Estate Marketing
Freelance Graphic and Web Designers Directory - Join Free
"All limitations are self imposed" ~ Malaclypse The Younger

He has: 1,758 posts

Joined: Jul 2002

You probably could using an ActiveX control to read certain files on the hard drive, but thats bad and wrong, and would only work in IE.

Want to join the discussion? Create an account or log in if you already have one. Joining is fast, free and painless! We’ll even whisk you back here when you’ve finished.