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Should you publish a email directory of all users on webpage
We are rolling out a new website. Management has requested that we put a directory of every email address of all of our employees on the site. I am hesitant. I am concerned about spambots and spiders, as we have a very small staff, and don't have a webmaster on staff, I know there are ways to prevent it somewhat, but I am afraid we don't have the resources to stay on top of it. Can anyone give me pros and cons of this, or point me to articles discussing this. I have looked myself, but I think I must be phrasing it wrong because I am not finding much.
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I would have to agree that it is not a good idea to publish ALL of your users email addresses to the internet. If this is stricly an INTRA NET site where it is only accessible internally or over a VPN I think that would be fine.
However something publically like this i would not. The obvious is hackers and spam etc. If you are looking for support contacts then it is better to only publish a generic email account like support@domain.com or something on those lines.
Will.
However something publically like this i would not. The obvious is hackers and spam etc. If you are looking for support contacts then it is better to only publish a generic email account like support@domain.com or something on those lines.
Will.
It is a really bad idea. That's like a public invitation to spam all those people every day. And No, there are not ways to prevent it. Those encoded hacks are easily read by the spambots and have been for years.
My university does do this and although we do have spam the microsoft spam client for exchange works well at the server to block most spam, not nearly all. We don't have a true intranet, so this was the trade off. We have been bought out by a hospital and they don't publish their employees emails online (which has been a thorn in my side for a long time). You need an obfuscated link to see their address book.
Even without bots you will have people chasing sales opportunities. Usually they have a single point of contact who will be trained/able to deal with those advances. You won't want to get the company a bad name through an untrained reply to "yet another' sales contact.
I worked for a company that had a 'no names' policy for calls. If you didn't know who you wanted then you were directed to the head of whatever department, but never told the persons name unless they introduced themselves.
I wouldn't publish the company mail list publicly at all.
I worked for a company that had a 'no names' policy for calls. If you didn't know who you wanted then you were directed to the head of whatever department, but never told the persons name unless they introduced themselves.
I wouldn't publish the company mail list publicly at all.
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