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Are bots not prepared to just decode this instead?

Yes, most bots will decode this easily. Some bots also decode various JavaScript based obfuscations and email addresses in images. But in contrast to those, this little obfuscator doesn't harm the usability (you can copy and paste it, screen reader compatible etc.).

For the last 10+ years I personally have not tried any more to hide my email address on the web. It's visible in thousands of places (mailing list archives, websites, git commits) and the volume of spam is absolutely manageable (~100 a day, 99+% filter rate with spamassassin and blocking some networks).

Yeah it seems this would be easy to parse, but I have also seen things like:

USERNAME at that Googly Maily Thing

and other "creative" ways to hide it. I just know if I put an e-mail out on the web, I usually have it as a "mailing" list type of ID, so I'm not just placing mine out there.

Neat app though.

But why? Unless you are targeting Linux users or devs in general, nobody will obfuscate like this. And to decode this you (your bot) need to run untrusted code. The upside has to justify the work securing your bot.

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