Why am I getting some "Passport" login screen when I click on a "contact us" link?

The computer you’re using is set to use Hotmail as its default mail
program. Passport is (or was) the mechanism to login to a Hotmail account. In
order to send the email that you indicated you want to send, you need to login
to your Hotmail account to do so.

Even as Hotmail transitions to Windows Live Mail, and the login screen looks
less like Passport and more like something else, the fact is there’s
still a login screen.

What if that’s not what you were expecting? What if you don’t use
Hotmail?

The link you clicked on is called a “mailto” link. It’s a way that web pages
can encode an address to make it easy for you to send email without having to
type that address in by hand. Here’s an example:

click to send email to a bogus
address

(I use a bogus address because email addresses encoded this way are
harvested by spammers. That address will now start getting spam.)

If you click on that link your default mail program should start, and it will open a
compose window with the “To:” line already filled in with
“spam@ask-leo.com”.

If your system is configured to use Hotmail or Windows Live Mail as your
default mail program, then you’ll most likely need to login first. That’s where
the Passport or other login screen comes from. Once you login to your Hotmail
account you should be taken to a compose window with that same “To:” line
already filled in.

Since that’s not what you were expecting, you’re probably not using Hotmail.
I see two scenarios you need to be concerned about.

Your own machine

The “default mail program” is just a setting, and on your own machine you
should simply change that to be whatever mail program you do use. This article
covers how to do so: How do I change the
“mailto:” or default mail program?

Once you make that change, clicking on a mailto or “contact us” link using
mailto should open the mail program you expect.

Someone else’s machine

To be honest, I’m not sure exactly what you would expect to have happen
here. Once again, I see two possibilities:

• If you don’t use web-based email … well, this is someone else’s
  machine, so your email program simply won’t be here. You’ll need to find a
  different way to send your email. Typically that means either temporarily using
  web-based email, like Hotmail, so the Passport or login screen is totally
  expected, or saving the email address and sending your email later from your
  own machine.

• If you do use web-based email, then even though you could use it,
  you should think twice about using it on someone else’s machine anyway.
  Depending on your level of trust, they could have spyware or worse to intercept
  your login ID and password. In any case, you’ll need to save the email address
  that you’re wanting to send to. If you do want to login to your own web-based
  email, then do so and compose your message as you normally would by typing or
  pasting that email address into the “To:” line by hand.

Capturing the email address

The one piece that’s missing so far is how to get the email address that
might be behind that “contact us” link without clicking on it and getting some
email program you don’t know or want.

Right click on it, and select “Copy Shortcut”, “Copy Link Location”, or
whatever equivalent your browser provides.

If you want to send mail, fire up your mail program, compose a new message
and click in the “To:” line, and hit paste. You’ll see something line this get
inserted:

mailto:spam@ask-leo.com

You’ll need to manually delete the “mailto:” part of that, and you’re good
to go.

If you’d rather not send mail, but just want to know what the link was, then
open notepad instead and paste into there. You’ll see the same text and you
can record the email address that’s referenced.