"mailto:$user\@$domain" gets parsed by Perl into 'mailto:'.$user.'@'.$domain so there isn't any difference between the two. Perl doesn't execute code in the case of "this `date` string", and even it did, $date='`date`'; "this $date string" still wouldn't execute code.

My question on the original code is "What good does it do?" If a robot is prowling the web for e-mail addresses, why wouldn't it follow the link and get the e-mail address in this case? Do most of these robots skip links with "?" in the URL? Or do they not harvest e-mail addresses when given in redirects? Just curious...

        - tye (but my friends call me "Tye")