There's your answer, Tom.
(Not to diverge too far from the topic, but...) Email is my primary function at work; I've got 25 email servers - about 16,000 users - and I'm blocking about 10 million pieces of spam mail per year now, and it's increasing roughly 30-40% per year.
How long have you had your email address? "Spidering" open web sites to gather email addresses is still done to a certain extent, but it's an "old school" technique, so maybe a recent email address is relatively "safer" from that perspective. For contrast, I've had the same email address for over 10 years, and that address is all over UseNet, and it's bastard children web pages DejaNews and Google News; I get approximately 350 pieces of spam email to that address
per day.
The most common current ways of harvesting email addresses is via infected PCs, where the virus gathers the email addresses from someone's MS Outlook address book and sends 'em all home to Momma. Unless you never correspond with folks that use MS Outlook, or only with people that properly protect their PCs with anti-virus software (good luck with herding
those cats) you will get on spammer lists eventually.
Back to my original point: I don't know why SCCA chose to put personal contact information behind a membership-only gateway. Frankly, I don't care. However, it's a
DAMNED fine idea, and "best practices" for any kind of legitimate business. If your organization is comfy with putting your email address "out there" for all the world to see (assuming there's no graphics or otherwise to keep a computer from recognizing as such) then I suppose it's their prerogative, but it's a bad, poor practice.
And, you WILL get hammered eventually. Count on it. - GA
)