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As an experienced intellectual property lawyer, Thomas Parent is no stranger to the perils of computer viruses sent through e-mail.
Usually he won't bother to read an attachment if it comes from an unfamiliar source, fearing that the e-mail may be corrupted.
This time, however, Parent let his guard down.
When he received an electronic greeting card recently from one of his trusted clients, he opened it immediately and clicked on the end-user agreement without reading the fine print.
It turned out the e-mail was a fake e-card containing a virus from a company called FriendGreetings. By clicking on the end-user agreement, Parent granted permission for the program to raid his Microsoft Outlook address book, spamming most of his professional and personal contacts.
"It was extremely embarrassing to have to deal with that," Parent said. "It wasted a bunch of my time."
No one knows how many illegitimate e-greetings are sent each holiday season, but lately the numbers appear to be growing, according to McAfee Security.
The perpetrators include spammers, virus writers and porn purveyors who use traditional hacking tactics to trick potential customers into viewing their messages.
The FriendGreetings scam is among the more recent versions of such scams. Another type of ersatz e-greeting contains a Trojan horse program called Cytron, which delivers pop-up ads promoting adult websites to Internet Explorer users who click on the card.
E-cards emerged as a cheap, convenient alternative to traditional paper cards in the mid-1990s. At the time, most e-cards were free of charge and virus-free.
These days several major card companies charge for their electronic greetings. Meanwhile, experts are cautioning receivers of online cards to take care before opening them, lest they end up with a nasty surprise.
Individuals should equip themselves with anti-virus software and shun e-greetings from unknown senders, said Charlie Fink, president of AmericanGreetings.com.
"Users should never download anything from anyone they don't know," Fink warned.
E-card services insist that viruses and spam haven't had a noticeable effect on consumer demand. Still, insiders are keeping close tabs on fake e-cards.
"There's not been an impact that we've seen," Fink said. "But we are concerned about the amount of spam and viruses affecting the industry."
While the influx of spam and viruses may not have diminished e-card traffic, some users have abandoned e-card sites that now charge them for digital greetings.
AmericanGreetings.com is the Web's largest online greeting site, with more than 12.5 million unique monthly visitors. Last year, the company bought rivals Blue Mountain and Egreetings.
In December of last year, American Greetings transitioned from an entirely free site to a subscription model that offers both free and paid greetings. Now, those cute animations of dancing frogs and cats come at a price -- about $14 a year for a Blue Mountain or Egreetings membership.
"Advertising alone can't support a business of this scale," Fink said.
Some users have abandoned American Greetings since it started charging, instead turning to sites that don't charge for their services, like Yahoo Greetings and Hallmark.com.
Unique visitors to Americangreetings.com decreased by 36 percent and unique visitors to Bluemountain.com slipped 67 percent between October 2001 and October 2002, according to Nielsen/NetRatings. Meanwhile, unique visitors to Hallmark.com increased by 51 percent during that same period, while overall, traffic to the top five e-card sites decreased by 36 percent.
"Hallmark's numbers are increasing within that segment since our e-cards are free, but the big picture is that e-card sending in general is not increasing," said Mitch Peterson, marketing manager for Hallmark.com.
However, American Greetings' sites have attracted thousands of new subscribers since the company started charging earlier this year -- an indication that some users are willing to pay for e-cards, Fink said.
"Some customers think (American Greetings' subscription costs) are fairly priced and superior in quality," Fink said.
For American Greetings, the real test will come when new subscribers decide whether or not to renew their subscriptions next year. The company insists that users will continue to pay for e-greetings, through the holiday season and into next year.
"With the downturn in the economy, with advertising down, I think we've had a very good year," Fink said. "We feel very strongly about next year. The conversion of free users to paid subscribers has been very steady. People are willing to pay for content that they value on the Internet."
But Thomas Parent, for one, won't be clicking on any e-cards any time soon.
"Anything that's an attachment is something you have to watch out for," he warned.
