# Hide my email info in the "contacts" tab?



## El Mahdi (Aug 15, 2010)

I've noticed that my email address is visible in the contacts tab of my profile page to anyone looking at it.  Most other profiles I've looked at show the email addresses also (though not all).  Where is the setting option to hide my email address?


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## El Mahdi (Sep 30, 2010)

[MENTION=1]Morrus[/MENTION]

I realize that de-selecting the option to have members send me email removes my email address from my profile.  But I'd like people to be able to send me email, I just don't want my email address in the open on my profile page (I don't want it in the open at all).  I want other members to be able to send email, I don't want spammers picking it up off my profile page though.

Could there be a way to allow this option without displaying the actual email address on the profile page?


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## Morrus (Sep 30, 2010)

I'm not sure I understand.  How will people send you emails without your telling them what your email address is?


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## Umbran (Sep 30, 2010)

Morrus said:


> I'm not sure I understand.  How will people send you emails without your telling them what your email address is?




EN World would have to do it for them - click here to e-mail Joe!

It would seem to me that the PM system does the job - allowing at least initial contact without revealing outside contact information.


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## El Mahdi (Sep 30, 2010)

Well, I was thinking just a link like what's used for pm'ing.  Like Email El Mahdi, but not actually showing the email address.

I realize that anyone can still email you by hitting the link, but this way, spammers can't copy the whole address and add it to their spam lists.  I haven't had a problem with that happening...yet...but I changed my settings so that the email address wouldn't show up anymore because of that possibility.  Though I would still like the ability to have people email me directly.

If it can't be done, it can't be done.  No big deal.  Just wondering if it was possible.


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## Morrus (Sep 30, 2010)

I think it probably can be done - a form where they enter their email - but at that point it's identical to the PM system (which sends you the PM by email anyway).


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## Umbran (Sep 30, 2010)

El Mahdi said:


> Well, I was thinking just a link like what's used for pm'ing.  Like Email El Mahdi, but not actually showing the email address.
> 
> I realize that anyone can still email you by hitting the link, but this way, spammers can't copy the whole address and add it to their spam lists.





The simple way to do this would be to use a mailto: link, but then anyone who can parse a link can get your e-mail.


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## El Mahdi (Sep 30, 2010)

Umbran said:


> The simple way to do this would be to use a mailto: link, but then anyone who can parse a link can get your e-mail.




Yeah, I don't know how to do that...but I'm sure spammers do.

Oh, well.  It was just a thought.


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## coyote6 (Oct 2, 2010)

If you built a system to send emails from the web, even if they couldn't harvest email addresses from it, spammers would use the form to send people spam. 

Then when/if someone got an email from notreally[MENTION=22090]as[/MENTION]pammer.com via ENWorld and replied to say "WTF", they'd get the email address.


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