email address is causing embarrassment

[eyewoo]

I've had my email address (philwms At philwms DOT com ) since 1997 when I bought the domain name. I've had a number of websites that have displayed the email address in the contact area... hence the address has been getting into bulk mailing lists for 7 or 8 years now.

For sometime I've been getting "undeliverable" and "failure" notices for email that appears to have been sent from that email address. Much of it is pornographic. I have not ever sent such email, but it looks as if I am. In fact, I've even received a couple of emails from acquaintences who were curious about getting "odd" email from me.

Is there any way to get my email address off those bulk mailing lists... or stop it from being used that way? It is becoming embarrassing!

Philip Williams
signature removed by moderator

Right now there is no way that you can prevent someone from forging an address in your domain. There may never be a way to prevent that. The bogus DSNs you receive are commonly called backscatter. Google for email backscatter and you will find some solutions to that part of the problem.

>>> RCPT TO:<any-random-junk@philwms.com>
<<< 250 2.1.5 <any-random-junk@philwms.com>... Recipient ok

Accepting mail for anything@domain.tld is not a good idea either.

[Adrian Bell]

You might want to encode your address with this:-

http://www.siteup.com/encoder.html

It won't stop what has already started however, but if you change your address it should help.

You can also use javascript:-

<script type="text/javascript">
<!--
document.write("phil" + "wms" + "@" + "phil" + "wms" + ".com")
//-->
</script>

The above methods should stop 99% of e-mail address harvesters.

[eyewoo]

Now that Javascript code is cool.... Gonna do it!

[eyewoo]

In fact, if you put the address elements in JS variables and then do the + thing with the variables, I bet it would be 100% safe.

[adam15c]

IMO this is even better http://www.dynamicdrive.com/emailriddler/

[Redpin]

You should also look into getting an SPF record. See http://spf.pobox.com/ .

[541]

Also you shouldn't post it in forums like you have, even in this one. For example: philwms AT philwms DOT com

[psalzer]

I edited the e-mail address in the original post so it wouldn't add the the problem.

I've been using E Cloaker on a couple of sites. I haven't gotten any spam to those addresses so far.

[eyewoo]

541 - well, I'm a freelance illustrator, so posting my email address on my website is pretty important. I'm going to use the Javascript trick. That method should pretty much take care of future problems.

[Gankaku]

These are awesome tips.