Sad to say, but the web is full of automated systems (called "bots" - short for robots) that automatically fill in forms with web sites or email addresses relating to everything from low interest loans to life insurance to the availability of personal services we won't describe here. This doesn't directly effect YOU or your computer, because all this nonsense comes to US.

The end result is that we have to review each submission, throw out the bad, keep the good. If there is too much of it,  the mowing gets a little high, things slow down. Sometimes, the word gets out that the page is unprotected, which draws even more spam.

To address the problem, we take advantage of the bad guy's strategy. They fill in every available field with web site URLs, email addresses, and the like. One thing they do NOT enter is blank spaces. Thus, we have one field where the only acceptable entry is some blank spaces. Anything else is rejected, and the form is not submitted to us. The instruction to tap your space bar a few times, while it appears as text, is really a picture. Thus, the "bots" can't read it to figure out what we're doing.

We hope you agree that tapping your space bar a few times is a very minor inconvenience, and well worth the effort to maintain a smooth and speedy ordering process.

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