Capturing email address

[Glasgow]

Is it possible (using Frontpage or otherwise) to capture the email address (or any other information that might tie down identity/location) of the user browsing your site without them physically having to type in that data?

I am interested from the point of view of protecting the user's privacy and anonymity than actually finding a way of doing this - I was asked by a client and did not know the answer!

Thanks in advance.

 

[Garridon]

A good web site statistics program will give you information about the location of people visiting your web site. Just run Web site statistics on Google or some other search engine and make sure you get a trial download first to make sure it does all you need.

 

[Glasgow]

Thanks - by location, do you mean IP address? I assume that such a tool would still not be able to capture email addresses from the remote client?

Please excuse my ignorance in this area!

 

[Garridon]

The IP address is the address of the Web site they are logging on through--i.e., AOL is an example of one or the Googlebot. The log files record the IP address, and the statistics program tallies it up for later use. They will NOT capture email addresses--which, if they did, would create a very sticky privacy issue, especially with all the issues involving spam. But you also said you wanted to know the identity/location; a statistics program will tell you that. It'll tell you what country they're from, if they're military or government, or if they're coming in from AOL or from a company.

This article will tell you more about web metrics:

http://builder.cnet.com/webbuilding/pages/Servers/Traffic/ss01.html

 

[Glasgow]

OK thanks - that's pretty much the answer I was hoping for!

Thanks also for link