email grabbing webpage

[rfigley]

Help me settle an argument. A computer tech friend of mine swears he's heard and also experienced visiting webpages that have grabbed his email address and wants to do the same. I told him the only way for a site to get his address is if he provides it, or if they got it through data mining, or via other mailing lists, but there is not a way for a web page to grab your email address when you visit it.

Can any one tell me I'm wrong?

[drawmack]

Yes, in some instances you are wrong.

For example if you use IE and Outlook the email address in Outlook can be accessed via VBScript through IE.

[rfigley]

OK, is that the only way, or can it do through OE as well? This answer does make sense though since my friend does use Outlook. I however use OE andhave never experienced this as he has. Don't suppose it can be done with AOL users? (Had to ask)

[drawmack]

I would assume that any time you set an email address in your browser's options (I know of a couple browsers that do this with a build in mail client like opera) a creative and unscrupulous programmer could take advantage of that to grab your email address.