Everyone has an email address, but do they have your address? If so, then how did they get it? Unlike your house keys, you give your email address out to everyone. You put it on your business card, you email it to a friend, who forwards it to a mutual friend, but typically and most frequently you distribute it insentiencely - as it goes out in every message that you send.

There are of course other ways that people acquire your email address. Following is a brief summary of each method along with the preferred form of permission key that is best suited for distribution via that method.

This information is provided for interested only, as you don't need to be concerned about what type of keys are used for what purposes as Message Keys for Outlook with take care of all of this for you, automatically.

Acquired from a received email

The most common method whereby people acquire an email address is from an email that they receive, either directly from you - the "protected user", or via a third party. Typically one of the first things that a person does when

they change their email address is to email it to all of their friends. Once received, the email address will generally be added to the recipient’s address book, and as the key is embedded in your email address itself, the key will be preserved. The type of key that we use for this, is what we call a DNA/CaseKey Hybrid Key.

Acquired from a web page

While it is fairly uncommon now days to see an email address published on a web page, and we certainly do not recommend it for the average user, there are times when publishing an email directly on your web site produces better results then forcing potential customers to use a web form.  Many people still prefer to send an email directly, then the alternative of filling out a web form.  Accordingly, the mailto tag is still featured on many sites, and the mailto tag still accounts for a significant number of ‘first contact’ messages - particularly for business that don't wish to place un-necessary obstacles in the way of potential customer inquiries.

To this end we offer a "web service" that dynamically inserts keyed versions of your email address in to your web page. To use it, you just insert a small JavaScript in to your page where you would like your email address to appear. Then when some one visits your page, they are provided with a keyed instance of your email address in a mailto tag that contains a temporary key that will remain valid for only the next 4 days - long enough for them to send you a message, yet not long enough for a spam-bot to harvest and sell your email address. (You may recall, that neither the absence of a key, or the presence of an invalid key, will increase the likelihood of a message being treaded as Spam, so even if a person should use this address after the key had expired, then their message would be no more likely to end up in your junk folder, then it would have been if you were not using an email permission keys system at all.)

For those that are interested, the type of key that we use for this purpose is a Plus Addressing/CaseKey Hybrid Key, if your mail system supports it, otherwise a CaseKey.

Acquired via web form

The second most popular acquisition method is via a web form - when you enter your email address on a web page to sign-up for a service or newsletter. This includes signing up for social networks,  email publications, newsletter Subscriptions, and other services where an email address is required to be entered in to a web form.

Preferred form of key: Plus Addressing/CaseKey Hybrid Key, if your email system supports it, otherwise a CaseKey

Acquired off-line, via phone, business card, etc

Typically off-line acquisition involves the sender manually typing in the protected user’s email address. For example: from a business card, over the phone, or from off-line media. Direct "typing in" of an email address is error prone and unreliable - so users tend to avoid it.  Accordingly the proportion of first contact messages that contain manually typed in email addresses is very low. In any case, the "first contact" messages that originate from these type of origins are often both of a higher importance, and also unfortunately, often mistaken for Spam by Spam Filters.

Preferred form of key: Plus Addressing Key, if the protected user’s mail system supports it.