Why DO we use [at] instead of @?
March 31, 2009 2:11 PM   Subscribe

Quick! I need to explain why mopoetry[at]gmail.com should be typed as such and not mopoetry@gmail.com. Can anyone give a concise and historical reason to choose this option, especially for use on a poster?
posted by psylosyren to Computers & Internet (19 answers total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
Well, people do that on webpages so that spamcrawlers that are looking for an "@" sign won't pick up their e-mail addresses. I guess its just trickled down from the boingboing elite down to the mainstream at this point, and people do it in print just to be stylish.
posted by Oktober at 2:14 PM on March 31, 2009


it's generally done to avoid being recognised as an email address by automated things trawling the internet for spam targets. It makes no sense at all for a poster (unless you're worried about the Streetview car I guess...)
posted by gregjones at 2:14 PM on March 31, 2009 [4 favorites]


People type [at] instead of using the @ sign because it makes the email address less likely to be picked up by bots harvesting addresses for spam purposes. I'm not sure how well it works, but that's why people do it — it's considered a bad idea to write out your email address on a web site, or in any electronic form, without some sort of obfuscation for this reason. I think it originated on Usenet, because the spam problem is particularly bad there and it's also trivial for bots to go through messages and grab the emails in them.

On a poster, though? Now that would just be weird. No reason to do it there except for stylistic reasons.
posted by Kadin2048 at 2:15 PM on March 31, 2009


If memory serves, in the earlier days of the internet, email spammers had simple bots that would trawl websites and so forth for the @ sign, assuming that the characters around it were an email address.

The convention "name [at] service [dot] com" was and is still pretty widely used as a simple preventative measure. Nowadays, I'm pretty sure spammers have much better ways of getting email addresses, and the taboo against posting an actual email address is a little less than it used to be.

But on a print poster? That's just silly.
posted by Aquaman at 2:16 PM on March 31, 2009


Echoing the other users here. I'd think it was weird if I saw it on a poster.
posted by Nattie at 2:17 PM on March 31, 2009


The idea is that back-in-the-day spambots would crawl websites looking for things that looked like email addresses (something@something.something) and add them to their spammy mailing lists. In my opinion this technique is pretty redundant with the advent of decent spamfilter technology, in addition to the fact that spambots are probably clever enough to identify most of the common, reader-friendly obfuscations by now (like the [at] example.)

I have no idea why this technique would be used on a poster, other than if the details were copypasted from a webpage.
posted by so_necessary at 2:18 PM on March 31, 2009


Response by poster: Thank you all for the input. Of course that is where it started. And, it seems, of course it would be a bad design choice on a poster.
posted by psylosyren at 2:22 PM on March 31, 2009


Unless you're using a very weird font face, in which @ is confusing with a (or some other character), there's no reason, and you should use @. If you are using this weird font face, don't.

I notice email addresses on posters often have spaces before and after the @ and ., making their placement easier to see.
posted by jeather at 2:22 PM on March 31, 2009


I don't know why people are saying "back in the day" spam bots still crawl the internet to this day. I regularly test this by creating an email and then not using it or doing anything with it except posting it online somewhere (eg, here: spamtest3399083@gmail.com) and then waiting for the spam to start rolling in from the bots.

Anything in digital format should avoid the "@" in case it ends up online. If you're printing it out, then it doesn't matter.
posted by brenton at 2:24 PM on March 31, 2009 [1 favorite]


It's on the poster because the designer got the content that way and the copy editor didn't catch the mistake.
posted by ericc at 2:56 PM on March 31, 2009


...by the way, bots are much smarter now and will detect the use of [at] or (at) and many other things. Try to use something a little less common like perhaps username~@t~domain.com or even username@domain[REMOVETHIS].com that will probably fool all but the most clever spambots.
posted by brenton at 3:18 PM on March 31, 2009


I don't know why people are saying "back in the day" spam bots still crawl the internet to this day.

This is true. However, this technique for obscuring email addresses worked for about 10 minutes before writers of bots got wise to it and wrote harvesters that simply turned "at" and "[at]" into "@" and carried on about their business. Addresses can then be tested automatically and in massive volume.

These "obscuring" techniques haven't worked since 1999 at the latest. Other techniques -- like using text images for your email address -- might still work, but are annoying enough to users that it's pointless. so_necessary is correct that the best way to fight spam by far is to just use a decent spam filter.
posted by coolguymichael at 3:27 PM on March 31, 2009


Other techniques -- like using text images for your email address

But then screenreaders can't decipher it, and you lose anyone with vision problems, unless it's in the alt text, in which case the spambots pick it up anyway. But I'm drifting off topic here, sorry.

posted by inigo2 at 4:08 PM on March 31, 2009


I say go for it. its a design choice - its not like someone can click on your email and so there is also no reason for you to actually use @. it can be part of your over all look.
posted by zenon at 4:26 PM on March 31, 2009


I'm confused.

"Quick! I need to explain why mopoetry[at]gmail.com should be typed as such and not mopoetry@gmail.com. Can anyone give a concise and historical reason to choose this option, especially for use on a poster?"

I'd think you have it backwards. For a poster, you'd want to use mopoetry@gmail.com and NOT mopoetry[at]gmail.com because people are visual creatures. We've gotten to the point where the @ symbol is pretty much synonymous with email. A poster is a visual advertisement. Make the info you're advertising as obvious as possible.
posted by 2oh1 at 5:50 PM on March 31, 2009


Some fonts FAIL at adressing the @ sign. There's been several times where I've been putting together a design of some sort and the font I'm using has a bulky or flimsy looking @ sign. If I want a vintage feel? An @ sign looks too modern. On business cards, too, I've enjoyed saying "at" instead of inserting a gawky looking @.
posted by redsparkler at 8:08 PM on March 31, 2009


I mean, just look at it! It's so complex compared to other characters. How can the line width possibly be in harmony with the width of the other letters? Either it's too thin, or it's to big, or it's just such a detailed techy object next to the plain and simple letters.
posted by redsparkler at 8:10 PM on March 31, 2009 [1 favorite]


I always just think of 'around' instead of 'at'.
posted by sweetmarie at 11:12 PM on March 31, 2009


Yeah, it could be that the font didn't have an @ at all, or it looked really bad.
posted by showbiz_liz at 11:13 PM on March 31, 2009


« Older I seem to have stepped on some people's toes...   |   Help me remember this Jewish saying Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.