Spamming the Police

Just got an interesting e-mail an hour ago, from the Chief of Police in Temecula, CA.

If you recall last year, I posted an article on my Biker News Online blog about the Temecula cops having busted bikes for loud pipes, but are trying to back off due to angry business owners (link).

Well in that article, I posted the Chief's phone number and e-mail address, which he actually gave me permission to do. Since then, he's received a lot of correspondence. And here's his e-mail...

Steve:

My name is Jerry Williams, I am the Chief of Police for Temecula, Ca. Ever since I was quoted in one of your articles, I have been getting e-mails about your web-site. Most of them are praise and a few are requests to advertise. This is not a problem for me, I usually respond and let them know to contact you; however, I'm afraid that you may lose business if I fail to get around to responding to them.

I'm not sure how they get to me, but you may want to check your site for my e-mail address. Below is the latest e-mail that I received.

Let me know if there is anything I can do to help with this matter.

Jerry Williams
Chief of Police
Temecula, Ca.

The "latest e-mail" that he received and forwarded to me is a spam. It was generated by a robot that scours websites for e-mail addresses, and sends them a standard sales pitch on how you (a website publisher) can make money online. Apparently, he's getting so many of them lately, that he's concerned he won't have time to direct each one of them to me.

So I responded back that it was just a spam, and explained it.

But I guess I'll have to figure out a way to present his e-mail address in a way that scrapers can't identify. I've used imaged text in place of real text on some of my other sites, and that's probably what I'll do.