Contact Camo: How We Solved the Email Protection Problem
What We Delivered
When Spam Attacks: A Digital Nightmare
When working with the United Methodist Church’s Black College Fund directory, 
we noticed a significant vulnerability: every email address displayed on their site 
was being harvested by scrapers, resulting in overwhelming spam for admissions officers and faculty.
Existing WordPress plugins only obfuscated emails with JavaScript – a method 
easily defeated by modern web scrapers. Organizations were left choosing between accessibility and protection, with neither option truly satisfactory.
When Spam Attacks: A Digital Nightmare
Instead of following conventional approaches, we engineered Contact Camo 
to completely remove email addresses from the page source while maintaining 
seamless contact functionality. This required:
- Developing a novel approach to form generation that doesn’t expose 
the target email anywhere in the code
- Creating an elegant shortcode system that WordPress administrators 
could implement without technical expertise
- Building customizable contact methods that preserve brand integrity 
while eliminating vulnerability
The Invisible Shield for Your Inbox
The complexity behind Contact Camo’s simplicity showcases our development philosophy:
- We built a secure backend system that generates contact forms dynamically 
without exposing email addresses in the DOM
- We created multiple implementation options (buttons, inline forms, modal 
popups) that could be styled to match any organization’s branding
- We ensured WordPress integration was seamless through careful attention 
to the WordPress plugin architecture
- We balanced security requirements with user experience to ensure legitimate 
users never encounter friction
Where Email Scrapers Hit 
a Dead End
What began as a client-specific solution evolved into a product that serves educational institutions, non-profits, and organizations worldwide. This evolution demonstrates our approach:
- We identified a universal problem through client work
- We developed a robust, scalable solution
- We refined the implementation with real-world testing
- We packaged the solution as an accessible WordPress plugin
This capability to transition from custom development to productized solution represents our commitment to creating value beyond individual client engagements.
Security That Feels Invisible
Contact Camo represents our technical prowess in several key areas:
- WordPress Plugin Development: We navigated the WordPress architecture 
to create an enterprise-grade security solution that appears deceptively simple 
to end users
- Security Implementation: We developed a protection mechanism that prevents 
even sophisticated bots from accessing critical information
- UX Design: We ensured the protection layer never impacts the user experience 
for legitimate visitors
- Form Integration: We built customizable contact methods that integrate with 
existing WordPress infrastructures
Why We’re Proud of Contact Camo
Contact Camo exemplifies our approach to problem-solving: we identified a pervasive challenge faced by organizations maintaining online directories, engineered a solution that outperforms existing options, and packaged it in a way that’s accessible to organizations of all sizes.
The plugin demonstrates our ability to balance technical complexity with user simplicity – creating powerful functionality that requires minimal technical knowledge to implement.
Visit contactcamo.com to see how we transformed a client need into a broadly applicable solution.
At Plan Left, we don’t just build websites and applications – we identify fundamental challenges and engineer innovative solutions.
Contact Camo represents our commitment to developing technology that protects our clients while enhancing their capabilities.
When you’re ready to invest in digital solutions that generate measurable returns instead of just ticking boxes — let’s talk about what’s possible for your business.
