Editing Address munging (section)

== Alternatives ==
As an alternative to address munging, there are several "transparent" techniques that allow people to post a valid e-mail address, but still make it difficult for automated recognition and collection of the address:

* [[Content delivery network]] vendors, such as [[Cloudflare]], offer email address obfuscation services to their clients.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://developers.cloudflare.com/support/more-dashboard-apps/cloudflare-scrape-shield/what-is-email-address-obfuscation/ | title=What is Email Address Obfuscation?}}</ref>
* "Transparent name mangling" involves replacing characters in the address with equivalent HTML references from the [[list of XML and HTML character entity references]], e.g. the '@' gets replaced by either 'U+0040' or '&amp;#64;' and the '.' gets replaced by either 'U+002E' or '&amp;#46;' with the user knowing to take out the dashes.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://dr0.ch/email-munging/|first=Daniele|last=Raffo|title=Email Munging|date=20 January 2015|access-date=12 February 2015|website=Daniele Raffo}}</ref>
* Posting all or part of the e-mail address as an image,<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://hidden-email.com/ |title=E-mail as an image |access-date=2009-05-17 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090504183814/http://hidden-email.com/ |archive-date=2009-05-04 |url-status=dead }}</ref> for example, no-one[[File:At sign.svg|15px|@|link=]]example.com, where the at sign is disguised as an image, sometimes with the [[alt attribute|alternative text]] specified as "@" to allow copy-and-paste, but while altering the address to remain outside of typical [[regular expression]]s of spambots.
* Using a client-side form with the e-mail address as a CSS3 animated [[ASCII art|text logo]] captcha and shrinking it to normal size using inline [[Cascading Style Sheets|CSS]].<ref>[https://bugs.webkit.org/attachment.cgi?id=120792 Client-side contact form generator] (the generator requires JavaScript enabled, output for displaying emails requires [[Comparison of web browsers#Web technology support|CSS]])</ref>
* Posting an e-mail address with the order of characters jumbled and restoring the order using CSS.<ref>[http://bithack.se/pub/ PHP jumbler tool] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070927091755/http://bithack.se/pub/ |date=September 27, 2007 }}</ref>
* Building the link by [[client-side scripting]].<ref>[http://www.spamstop.org/spamtools/email JavaScript address script generator] (the generator requires [[HTTP cookie|cookies]] enabled, output for displaying emails requires [[Comparison of web browsers#JavaScript support|javascript]] enabled)</ref>
* Using [[client-side scripting]] to produce a multi key email address encrypter.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.tonvanhattum.com.br/email_encrypter.php|first=Ton van|last=Hattum|title=Email Address on Your Site, SPAM Protection, Encrypting|date=13 March 2012|access-date=22 February 2017|website=Ton van Hattum}}</ref>
* Using [[server-side scripting]] to run a contact form.<ref>[http://www.addressmunger.com/contact_form_generator PHP contact form generator]</ref>
* Using [[Base64]] to encode the email address.

An example of munging "<nowiki>user@example.com</nowiki>" via client-side scripting would be:
<syntaxhighlight lang="javascript">
 <script type="text/javascript">
 var name = 'user';
 var at = '@';
 var domain = 'example.com';
 document.write(name + at + domain);
 </script>
</syntaxhighlight>
The use of images and scripts for address obfuscation can cause problems for people using [[screen reader]]s and users with disabilities,
and ignores users of text browsers like [[lynx (web browser)|lynx]] and [[w3m]], although being transparent means they don't disadvantage non-English speakers that cannot understand the plain text bound to a single language that is part of non-transparent munged addresses or instructions that accompany them.

According to a 2003 study by the [[Center for Democracy and Technology]], even the simplest "transparent name mangling" of e-mail addresses can be effective.<ref>{{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20031004024511/http://www.spamhelp.org/articles/030319spamreport.pdf "Why Am I Getting All This Spam? Unsolicited Commercial E-mail Research Six Month Report" March 2003.]}} accessed 2016-09-12</ref><ref>[http://www.cdt.org/speech/spam/030319spamreport.shtml "Why Am I Getting All This Spam? Unsolicited Commercial E-mail Research Six Month Report" March 2003.] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061218222622/http://www.cdt.org/speech/spam/030319spamreport.shtml |date=December 18, 2006 }}</ref>