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Re: email address @ vs. AT or use of an image for the @ symbol

for

From: Patrick H. Lauke
Date: May 1, 2018 9:06AM

On 01/05/2018 15:33, Crystal Tenan wrote:
> Hello,
>
> We have a group that I'm working with to try and have them move away from
> using AT or an image of the @ sign in their email addresses that are on our
> websites. For example cltenan AT college.edu instead of
> <EMAIL REMOVED> . I find these other ways confusing and inaccessible
> when using a screen reader. I can't find anything that directly spells out
> not to use this practice, but I'm trying to provide them feedback as to
> what in the Revised Section 508 guidelines it violates. I'm having
> difficulty aligning exactly which guideline this would fall under, any
> assistance would be appreciated. *Also they hyperlinked the AT and image @
> email addresses so the links go to a faulty email address.

I don't believe this contravenes any WCAG 2 SC nor any extended 508
refresh requirements directly (assuming that when they use the "@" image
it has appropriate alt text).

To me, this falls more into a usability rather than accessibility argument.

Their likely reason for doing it will be "so that bots can't scrape our
pages and gather email addresses to then spam us". Of course, if these
email addresses are perceived to be valuable enough, it's trivial for
bots to also look for "a string of characters that looks like the first
part of an email address, followed by AT, followed by another string of
characters which looks like a valid domain name". And spam is really a
problem that's better sorted at the email server end (spam filtering etc).

So the argument boils down to: is the advantage or perhaps receiving
less spam outweighed by the inconvenience caused to *all* users?

(and the fact that their links are then also broken is just a bad bug
for all users as well).

P
--
Patrick H. Lauke

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