Here’s something I’ve never seen before: a small rollover appearing over telephone numbers in a web browser inviting the user to click on the number in order to dial it using Skype.

The rollover appeared on my client’s laptop today (we were working together on updates for his site). I checked the code and found nothing special behind the telephone number — so, in order to rectify the issue for the client (he didn’t want these rollovers to appear for anyone), I deleted the phone numbers (which were in html) and created an image that displayed the telephone number instead. Without the standard telephone format (888-888-8888), the unwanted Skype rollovers disappeared. Of course, with the phone number now in image format, users will not be able to copy and paste the telephone numbers from his web page, but the client decided it was important to him not to have these unwanted Skype rollovers, so the image version remained.

I’m assuming this new element was appearing on his laptop because of his Skype plugin. Skype was able to recognize the phone number as a phone number simply because of the telephone-number format (three numbers followed by a hyphen, followed by another three numbers, followed by a second hyphen, followed by the final four number), and, as such, was “offering” this popup as a way to “encourage him” to use Skype.

Certainly, some Skype users might like this — others might not.

If anyone has anything to offer on the subject, I’d love to hear about it.