Summary: Electronic Greeting Cards, or ecards, seem like a nice idea, but often end up giving the recipient more than intended, in the form of spam or worse.
I recently sent a friend of mine an electronic greeting card. He replied that I shouldn't have. He said that because of my good intentions, he'd now be getting even more spam than ever. Is he right? Did I just screw up?
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In a word: maybe.
Electronic greeting cards seem like such a good idea. A quick point and click at a ecard service and you can send a cute virtual "card" via email. Quite often they're even animated, and with sounds or music in the background.
And quite often they have a hidden agenda.
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Think about it ... what's the one piece of information that a e-card service needs to have in order to deliver your card?
The email address of the recipient.
Now, how certain are you that the only thing they're going to do with it is send the card? How do you know that they won't now take your friend's email address and add it to a list of known-good email addresses that they can then spam, or sell to those who do?
It's a real dilemma. The same's actually true of any service that offers to email someone on your behalf. Ever seen those links that say "send this article to a friend"? The same potential exists there as well.
And, with all due respect, the fact that a site's privacy policy says "we won't spam" doesn't guarantee that they won't. Even here on Ask Leo!, I say it - how do you know I'm not lying? In fact, you don't. You can choose to believe, as I of course hope you do, but you might also choose to be skeptical. And I can't blame you.
So what are your alternatives?
Deal only with reputable sources - if you've never heard of the service, then steer clear. On the other hand, a larger company with an established reputation, say the Hallmark greeting card company, is more likely to maintain their reputation and play honestly. They have an extensive privacy policy on their website, and I choose to believe it ... because they are Hallmark.
Do it yourself - let's face it, the basic online greeting card is nothing more than a pretty picture with some well chosen words. A few minutes with a graphics program and your own photos and you can achieve similar results, without involving a third party. And your own photo and message is likely to be more meaningful anyway.
Use "old technology" - speaking of more meaningful, since it's a little more work, a paper card that you purchase, sign, address and put in the mail yourself is always going to mean more than something you can do in a click or two online. Send a real card.
Related:
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Ask Leo! - Why are internet petitions a bad idea?
Ask Leo! - Why shouldn't I forward this email asking me to "forward to everyone I know"?
Article C2435 - October 12, 2005
After unsubscribing an invalid email address from 123greetings.com (I route the malformed email at work, e.g., boob@ instead of bob@ ...), we got more spam but the nature changed from 'send a greeting card' to pill pushing. Pathetic.
Posted by: 123hater at November 21, 2006 6:25 AMAnd since I forgot to mention, the pill-pushing spam was from 123greeting.
Posted by: 123hater at November 21, 2006 6:26 AMhappy new year
Posted by: mukesh at December 13, 2006 8:49 PMI once registered to send a card via 123greetings; I've since been receiving 5-6 spam messages a day(From 'editor bob' or '123greetings', from mortgage refinancing to enlargement pills. No matter how many times I mark it at spam, they get around it.
Posted by: Don't use123 at May 9, 2009 7:47 PMi think sometimes that's a good idea, it's convenient for us to send friends via mail.
Posted by: amanda at January 5, 2010 5:41 PMi always make digital greeting card with iCollage.
if you like, you also can print the card.