[Discuss] box.net

[tmetro-blu at vl.com (Tom Metro)]

Richard Pieri wrote:
> Because the plus sign screws up their SQL queries.

Because the plus sign screws up their URLs. (If unescaped, the "+"
translates into a space in URLs.)

While 80% of sites outright refuse to accept addresses with a "+", of
the 20% that do, probably 40% of them have buggy code elsewhere that
sticks an unescaped email address into a URL in an email, redirect, or
multi-stage form, such that clicking the link to - say unsubscribe - breaks.

Fortunately this is easy to fix usually, but I have ran across a few
sites using multi-stage forms and redirects that are near impossible to
work around by correcting URLs in the address bar. The web browser will
escape form field data for you, so to manage to pass an unescaped email
address takes some creative bad programming.

 -Tom

-- 
Tom Metro
Venture Logic, Newton, MA, USA
"Enterprise solutions through open source."
Professional Profile: http://tmetro.venturelogic.com/