One of more popular email harvester programs is called EmailSiphon (a product known as Sonic). The web site which promotes this garbage has following to say:

"First of its kind on market, Sonic helps you extract highly targeted email addresses from World Wide Web pages. Earthonline Internet marketing expertise has enabled us to program a powerful, yet sensible product that allows for proven focused lead harvesting. Therefore, Sonic with its search engine ability and single domain capability is only second in World Wide Web extraction to Earthonline Nitro."

Obviously these scumbags think they are doing a great service to world by providing opportunity to scan thousands of sites per day for email addresses.

Okay, so what can you do?

Ask them politely - With most "good" spiders, this is very easy to do. You simply create a robots.txt file or use robots metatag (if you don't know what those are, don't worry about it). Unfortunately, email harvesters are written by and used by scum, so they typically ignore polite requests.

Block them - On some web servers this is possible using special commands in a file called htaccess (again, don't worry about it if you don't know what that is), but only with those robots that clearly identify themselves. For those that don't tell you who they are (and some of them do not), then you cannot block them. In addition, web host has to be specially set up to allow you to do this - and most, in my experience, are not.

Confuse them - Some webmasters create page after page of fake email addresses. These pages are not intended for people or good spiders (the robots metatag is used to keep good one's out) but rather are made attractive to email harvesters. The theory is simple - harvesters will not be able to resist temptation (they are not very bright, as programs go) and will scan these pages. They will grab dozens, hundreds and then thousands of fake addresses, thus wasting spammers time and possibly causing their programs to crash.

Does this work? Sure - occasionally, but it also does not prevent spammers from getting your other email addresses, and it still chews up resources (web servers and bandwidth) sending useless messages all over internet.

Cloak your email addresses - One thing you can do that is fairly effective is to make your email addresses look like something else. Some people create a graphic image with email address in it (not a great solution as it means email address must be retyped by your visitors). Others use JavaScript to make email address look like code. These solutions work (usually), but they make it difficult to maintain your site and often make it more difficult for your visitors. In addition, presumably spam harvesters will eventually catch on and make their programs smarter.

Strip your site of email addresses - The only solution that works for present time is to remove all email addresses from all of your web pages. If you need to get your visitors to send you information, then use a form (these cannot be harvested by spammers as long as email address is not part of form itself - Bravenet is a good service to use for this purpose). If you don't put your email addresses directly on your site, then spammers cannot get it using their harvesters.

So there you have it. I hope this is of use to you in fighting this internet evil known as email harvesting.

Over years, I have looked long and hard at Bcentral, and to tell complete truth I found it to be a highly overpriced hodgepodge of hastily patched together offerings which was difficult to use and mostly of limited value. Even so, free version of Listbot was one of better list processing services available. Because of this (and because of Listbot's long history) it became very popular for small lists and very small businesses.

Of course, Microsoft is not really shutting down Listbot. No, what they are doing is attempting to get people to pay for service, at a rate of about $269 per year. This price allows for sending of 10,000 emails per month, and you can purchase more if you desire. You have option of paying for new service or moving your list elsewhere.

What's wrong with this? A good analogy is 710 freeway debate going on in Pasadena, California at this time.

For last 20 years powers that be have been trying to build a 2 mile extension to 710 freeway. The problem is freeway extension will go through a beautiful, well established neighborhood. It requires demolition of a substantial number of old houses and relocation of a number of people. On top of that, freeways tend to divide communities and isolate people from one another.

The people of Pasadena have made it clear over and over again that they do not want this freeway extension. However, government, in it's infinite wisdom, has, for whatever reason, been trying to get it built in spite of people's wishes.

The government has forgotten (or doesn't care) that houses that they want to tear down are inhabited by families, some of whom have been living there for generations. The freeway is "for greater good" and little folk, in other words normal people, don't count.

Large companies tend to have same attitude. It didn't matter to Yahoo that hundreds of thousands of webmasters depended upon their ring system - only thing that mattered was bottom line. And it does not matter to Microsoft that tens of thousands of list owners, serving millions of people, depend upon their service. The only thing that Microsoft recognizes is that they are not making required amount of money from their service.

The argument that "free services no longer work" does not hold water. Listbot was free before incredible expansion in internet advertising, and it's certain that, with able and intelligent management, service could have remained free and profitable after collapse of internet advertising.

Is it wrong for a big company to want to make money for it's shareholders? Of course not. Shareholders are people with emotions and feelings as well. What is wrong is destruction of a service which is used by so many people, which was profitable and could be made profitable again, simply to further corporate goals without a single thought or care for people effected by change.

Just as when Yahoo destroyed webring, tens of thousands of listmasters now have to scramble to find alternative list hosting services. Some will make difficult choice to use a paid service, some will find free services and others (probably majority) will simply abandon their lists forever. This is saddest part of this story - lists which have been lovingly maintained for years will simply be destroyed. These lists will be burned in name of corporate profits.

It's sad and pitiful at same time. Take note when you see these thoughtless and careless events occur - you are witnessing results of incompetence at best and malicious evil at worst.