The penny didn’t drop with me until today about the ramifications of how Yahoo mail treats any word with a domain tail extension tacked on. A kind subscriber pointed out what for me was a rather embarassing situation.

Sometimes in my emails in general body text, I’ll refer to TamingTheBeast.net as Taming the Beast.net; no particular reason, just something I do. No big problem there I thought, but how Yahoo treats such text didn’t click with me. In instances where I have the word components of my domain name split up, it turns the last word and the .net into a link - and in my case that leads to a site of umm.. let’s just say an adult nature.

It’s always amusing to see people’s reactions when they first hear the domain name “TamingTheBeast.net” - I’m surprised how many folks think this site is about adult stuff; but in this particular case, because of Yahoo’s little “helper” feature - it certainly made it seem like that was indeed the topic of my site!

Sometimes I think we tend to dumb things down a little too much out here with all these little whizz bang features - and Yahoo’s automatic link insertion is one of those “user-friendly” initiatives that crosses that line in my opinion - if I want something to be linked in an email I send; I’ll insert a link myself dammit!… but maybe that’s just sour grapes on my part after today’s slightly embarassing incident ;).