[geophile]

OCR is pretty much a solved problem. Why not just print the url and have the phone read it? This minimizes the opportunities for havoc, since the url you read is the same as the url that your phone goes to. (Yes, I do recognize the opportunities for being tricky with characters that look like other characters.)

You could have a special symbol, indicating the presence of a url, special typeface etc., to make everything work even better.

[stephenr]

QR codes provide the ability to have a relatively long URL (much longer than can be represented by the equivalent text and still being readable in the same area/space) and offers built in error correction.

The problem isn't URLs, it's misuse of QR codes where just showing a URL would be no more useful.

[0x073]

Does anyone without a technical background really read the url or even the domain?

My feeling is no from my family and my friends view.

So a url will still something like a cryptic qr code.

[keep_reading]

You're just acknowledging that this solves nothing but you still seem to want to pursue it anyway