There are prgrams called "Autobots" or "Email Harvesters" that roam the internet trying to pickup email addresses. These emails are then sold to spam companies for bulk mailouts. If your email address is shown on website - then you will be a target for these Email Havesters.

But smart webdesigners can hide your email from these Email Harvesters by using javascript.

One such example is shown here: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Autobots and Email Harvesters don't normally run javascript. So if you turn the Javascript off in your browser, you'll see what the autobot sees  - that is -  the email is not displayed.

With Javascript on, it looks and responds as a normal email - the email harvesters won't see it.

So if your email is being displayed on the internet - ask your webdesigner to hide it from the email harvesters.

Turning Java Script On and Off

In Firefox, go to Options > Content tab...

Don't forget to turn Javascript back ON as a lot of websites now need it to function!