Editing Address munging (section)

==Disadvantages==
Disguising addresses makes it more difficult for people to send [[electronic mail|e-mail]] to each other. Many see it as an attempt to fix a symptom rather than solving the real problem of [[e-mail spam]], at the expense of causing problems for innocent users.<ref>[http://www.interhack.net/pubs/munging-harmful/ Address Munging Considered Harmful], Matt Curtin</ref> In addition, there are e-mail address harvesters who have found ways to read the munged email addresses.

The use of address munging on Usenet is contrary to the recommendations of RFC 1036 governing the format of Usenet posts, which requires a valid e-mail address be supplied in the From: field of the post. In practice, few people follow this recommendation strictly.<ref>See Usenet.</ref>

Disguising e-mail addresses in a systematic manner (for example, user[at]domain[dot]com) offers little protection.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Cadman |first=Kasey |date=2023-08-12 |title=The Ineffectiveness of Email Address Munging: Understanding and Alternatives |url=https://focustechs.co.uk/the-ineffectiveness-of-email-address-munging-understanding-and-alternatives/ |access-date=2024-07-18 |website=Focus Technology Solutions |language=en-GB}}</ref>

Any impediment reduces the user's willingness to take the extra trouble to email the user. In contrast, well-maintained [[e-mail filtering]] on the user's end does not drive away potential correspondents. No spam filter is 100% immune to false positives, however, and the same potential correspondent that would have been deterred by address munging may instead end up wasting time on long letters that will merely disappear into junk mail folders.

For commercial entities, maintaining contact forms on web pages rather than publicizing e-mail addresses may be one way to ensure that incoming messages are relatively spam-free yet do not get lost. In conjunction with [[CAPTCHA]] fields, spam on such comment fields can be reduced to effectively zero, except that non-accessibility of CAPTCHAs bring the same deterrent problems as address munging itself.