looks like a nested structure to me, TIMTOWTDI

These are actually HTML form element names, not Perl variables but they are dynamically generated by a Perl script like so:

$query=$dbh->prepare("SELECT idBusiness,emaillist,private,name,title,d
+escription FROM Business ORDER BY metric");
$query->execute();
while (($id,$em,$private,$text,$title,$desc)=$query->fetchrow_array())
+ {
    $list_color=$em?'black':'slategray';
    ($chk, $sub, $crm, $warmth)=$dbh->selectrow_array("SELECT Business
+_idBusiness, subscribe, CRMaccess, warmth FROM Business_has_Contact W
+HERE Business_idBusiness = $id AND Contact_idContact = $data{'contact
+'}");
    if ($chk) {
        $check=' checked';
        $dis='';
    } else {
        $check='';
        $dis=' disabled';
    }
    $warmth = 0 unless $warmth;
    $crmr_chk = $crmw_chk = '';
    $crmr_chk = ' checked' if $crm;
    $crmw_chk = ' checked' if $crm eq 'W';
    $subscribe=$sub?' checked':'';
    $text="<i>$text</i> <span class=\"privatelist\">[private]</span>" 
+if $private;
    print "<tr>\n<td><input type=\"checkbox\" name=\"bus_$id\" onChang
+e=\"subscribe(this,$id);\"$check>\n";
    print "<input type=\"checkbox\" name=\"sub_$id\"$subscribe$dis></t
+d>\n";
    print "<td title=\"$title\" style=\"color:$list_color\">$text</td>
+\n";
    print "<td style=\"text-align:center\"><input type=\"checkbox\" na
+me=\"crmr_$id\" onClick=\"crmAccess(this, $id);\"$crmr_chk>\n";
    print "<input type=\"checkbox\" name=\"crmw_$id\" onClick=\"crmAcc
+ess(this, $id);\"$crmw_chk></td>\n";
    print "<td><img src=\"/images/site/warmth$warmth.png\" style=\"wid
+th:28px\"> </td>\n" if $chk;
    print "</tr>";
}
[download]

This is part of a 4500+ line script that was originally written a long time ago and has been added to and modified lots over the years. Hence lack of white space and other poor legibility on some of the older bits of code. Nowadays I insert spaces either side of = and a space after a comma.