Editing Address munging (section)

{{Short description|Privacy technique to cloak e-mail addresses}}
{{Update|part=Alternatives|reason=References a study from two decades ago|date=February 2023}}
'''Address munging''' is the practice of disguising
an [[e-mail address]] to prevent it from being automatically collected by  unsolicited bulk e-mail providers.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Goodreads |url=https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16731494-address-munging |access-date=2023-06-17 |website=Goodreads |language=en}}</ref> 
Address munging is intended to disguise an e-mail address in a way that prevents computer software from seeing the real address, or even any address at all, but still allows a human reader to reconstruct the original and contact the author: an email address such as, "<nowiki>no-one@example.com</nowiki>", becomes "no-one at example dot com", for instance.

Any e-mail address posted in public is likely to be automatically collected by [[computer software]] used by bulk emailers (a process known as [[e-mail address harvesting|e-mail address scavenging]]). Addresses posted on [[webpage]]s, [[Usenet]] or [[chat rooms]] are particularly vulnerable to this.<ref>[http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/alerts/spamalrt.htm Email Address Harvesting: How Spammers Reap What You Sow] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060424083903/http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/alerts/spamalrt.htm |date=April 24, 2006 }}, Federal Trade Commission. URL accessed on 24 April 2006.</ref> Private e-mail sent between individuals is highly unlikely to be collected, but e-mail sent to a [[mailing list]] that is [[archive]]d and made available via the [[World Wide Web|web]], or passed on to a [[Usenet]] [[news server]] and made public, may eventually be scanned and collected.