For a long time now almost everyone who uses Facebook, is very much familiar with the fact that, no matter how hard you try you cannot copy an e-mail address of a user, as the entire address is published by Facebook in an image format. Although it proved to some what of a discomfort for the users, especially for those who wished to send a message to multiple contacts, yet this was a security feature employed by Facebook to put a lid on the spam activities.

However, now Facebook has removed this security measure and turned the e-mail addresses into plaint text format, in an effort to facilitate ease of use for the users. The social network giant has stated that turning this new move will not hinder its efforts in blocking the automated systems and scripts created by spammers as its security protocols are constantly evolving and that they have greatly improved their abilities to prevent profile scraping.

For the more conventional users, this move represents an ease in their use of Facebook, as they can now copy and paste the e-mail addresses of other Facebook users. The now revoked security technique called, optical character recognition (OCP) allowed Facebook to format text inside an image, thus rendering it ineffective to copy and paste commands.

According to a Facebook spokesperson

“Showing email addresses in plain text makes it easier for people to use the information to connect with their friends. We’ve improved our tools for detecting and preventing profile scraping over the last few years such that this additional precaution is no longer necessary.”

Via Inside Facebook