Not really very funny at all

OTA = Online Travel Agency, which means those sites that sell the booking and take the payment for you.
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marcus
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Not really very funny at all

Post by marcus »

During the course of the year I've noted down free ad sites, with a view to trying a few out over the spring.
One, maisoneurope had a 6 month free trial so i added our property a few weeks ago (ref 1888 if you're interested.) I forgot, and went to add it again today. So far so good.
Meanwhile on a different project of my own I've been looking at email address hiding, so that's my current interest. While I was in maisoneurope I thought why not take a look at the source and see how they do it (best way to learn and all that). Keep reading it gets interesting.

I was surprised to find that in fact they don't hide the recipient email code, it's visible there in the source code. Well, not good but not too serious if you like ads for viagra turning up all the time.

I was more surprised, if that is the right word, to find that the recipient email address was not me, but someone else. And a quick test confirmed that I could not receive a query sent from the site.

How funny is that. Either it's an accident, with a very poor system, or my queries are being intentionally diverted to someone else.

Although my expectations with a free site are not high I would expect certain standards to be followed. Wouldn't we all?

I've sent them a query to ask, of course. Meanwhile is anyone else with maisoneurope and have you received any queries from them. If not go look at your code and/or send yourself a test query.
Paul Carmel
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Post by Paul Carmel »

Hi Marcus,

We were with them on a free trial a couple of years ago and got zip. Maybe the problem you have was happening to us :?

How do you go about looking at code on someone else's site?
Cheers
PC
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marcus
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Post by marcus »

Both Internet Explorer and Firefox have 'View Source' as a standard menu option. Often very instructive, and a very good place to start learning code. That's how I knew what you were up to on your own site, of course...
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Alan Knighting
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Post by Alan Knighting »

Paul,

Like Marcus says, when you are in IE and you have a page on screen just go up to the menu bar at the top, click on "view" and click on" source" and Notepad will open with the source code displayed.

The other more comprehensive and sophisticated way is to use a product such as HTTrack Web Copier; with that you can get the whole website to whatever depth you wish, and it's links if you so wish. In the extreme, you could finish up downloading the source code of the whole Internet but that would be a bit extreme and would require a rather large hard drive.

I think this whole subject of spammers and scammers stealing your e-mail address is completely overplayed and overstated. I think it is one of those trendy things which people buy into and believe but in reality are simply not true. I have never made any secret of my Wanadoo e-mail address and yet after years of use I get very, very little spam or scam from it. Over the last four years I have kept all my spam and scam messages from that source in a separate folder and, to date, they total 18. Eighteen messages in four years – where’s the problem?

Where I do get spam and scam is from my Hotmail e-mail address which I only use in cases of dire emergency, like when “precious� ISP’s refuse to handle my messages because they are from Wanadoo. There, I get 5 or 6 a day which Hotmail filters anyway.

OK. Maybe these spiders contain very sophisticated algorithms which recognise that it would be a waste of time spamming or scamming me but I really don't think so.

Other people may have a different real experience but my reaction is – get real!

Alan
mvus
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Post by mvus »

I've used the internet for 7 years and get hardly any spam and none I can think of through the mailto: code in a webpage though I've since encrypted it through http://www.wbwip.com/wbw/emailencoder.html

It could be that a lot of people get spam from viruses or spyware but as I use a Mac have never been affected by them

I've had a couple of spare email addresses for web use that generated huge amounts of spam in the past. One was when I was new to the internet and replied to a spam message which is a complete no no and the other source is putting your private email on forums, directories and free webpages like webspawner
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marcus
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Post by marcus »

The important problem here was, of course, the fact that my email address had been switched for someone else's, so I could not possibly receive any queries sent, rather than an issue of spam.

The spam doesn't bother me personallyat all, but if I am doing web stuff for someone else I can't risk exposing them to a deluge of spam turning up with a website I do for them...

But I repeat...the problem was that my email address had been swopped or confused for someone else's - and that was the problem, an issue that I consider to be very serious. Not unlike if I went into your ads and somehow redirected all your queries to come to me instead of going to you.
mvus
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Post by mvus »

Did they publish your phone number? If not I would be seriously concerned
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marcus
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Post by marcus »

No they don't publish phone numbers. I was completely untraceable by someone wishing to make an enquiry.
alexia s.
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Post by alexia s. »

" I was completely untraceable"
Reminds me of a free site I went on several years ago where the only owners who were contacted were those who had agreed to pay a commission per booking to the site. This was not spelled out, of course - I discovered it by trial and error and then left the site. The real purpose of the site was hidden from the owners.
Its main page says something like "Search yourself" and then says "Or let us do all the hard work", this second option leading the visitor on to the commission-paying properties only.
Does anybody recognise this? I think it's still operating.
Best,
Alexia.
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