Send me nice email. Be aware that I reserve the right to post your comments on the internet. I won't if you request that I don't.
Send me mean email. I reserve the right to post your comments on the internet. I might make fun of you. I might ignore your requests.
There's a major spam problem these days. It's especially bad for those of us who have websites or who post to bulletin boards. Email harvesters have made it so nothing is safe. Using tricks like email*NOSPAM*@domain.com or email@REMOVETHISdomain.com doesn't necessarily protect you anymore because bots can be programmed to detect and remove anything predictable. If you use a “mailto” in your website, it's especially risky.
The solution that I discovered is to use Flash. If the code is contained completely in a Flash “swf”, no harvester can get to it. It can still work as a clickable link that opens a new email message in the user's email program. It's still human readable (unless you use an unreadable font like mine, heh), though not selectable text.
I can make you one of these spam-safe email buttons as a thank you gift for your gift or donation to me. Just give me a few specifications: background color, text color, font preference, and of course your email address. Other specifics can be given if you have a preference, such as, the width and height of the rectangle, and if you require a gif option in the case the user does not have the Flash plug-in. If the user's browser is missing the plug-in, the gif will replace the swf. It will look like the swf but will not be clickable. Most people these days have the Flash plug-in, so the gif is just a precaution*.
I'll send you the .swf, the .gif (if requested), and the xhtml code for you to copy into your files. The code will be standards compliant xhtml and will validate using the w3c validator.
Contact me if you have any questions.
*The gif option could put you at risk of your address being discovered by image reading bots. I don't know if those are being used for the purpose of harvesting email addresses yet, but it is a possible vulnerability.