Why My Email Address is not a mailto: Link
Here is
the answer:
- Yes, I am aware that my email address is not a mailto: link
- I also realize that this means that people have to spend an extra ten
seconds if they want to send me email
- I do know that this reduces usability and the user's productivity
The reason for this sub-optimal design is that I get several hundred email
messages per day. Thus, I prefer to filter my email to only hear from
those people who have something sufficiently important to say that they
are willing to invest the extra ten seconds.
Email is somewhat unusual in having two users: the sender and the
recipient. This means that a systemic approach to overall usability has to
balance both users' needs.
There is a second reason that is even more important: Anything you put
into a mailto: tag is fodder for EmailSyphon and other site suckers that
download entire websites in order to find email addresses that they can
add to spam mailing lists. I prefer hearing about as few
get-rich-schemes and porn sites as possible.