Sending E-valentines With Love -- and Security

By Elizabeth Wasserman

Legend has it that the earliest valentine cards were sent in 1415 by a young Frenchman, Charles, the Duke of Orleans, from his confinement in the Tower of London after losing a key battle. The Duke used his time in the tower to pen several poems and letters to his wife back in France.

While most of us aren’t in such dire straits as the lovelorn Duke was back then, we still like to observe February 14 each year by sending our loved ones a valentine greeting. More and more of us, however, are bypassing the pen and paper format and emailing our valentines to loved ones and friends instead. In fact, last year, American Greetings, the country’s second-largest card seller, said it delivered as many as 500,000 e-cards per hour on Valentine’s Day.

There may be a stigma about sending an e-valentine -- which requires a lot less effort than sending a written card -- to your special someone, but even the traditional greeting card industry has gotten on board. “You may want to express your love in a sweet, genuine way in writing, but sending a funny e-card to his or her email account is just as nice,” says Ingerlene Voosen Embry, an e-card editorial director at Hallmark Cards, which sells one e-card for every 20 paper cards.

Before sending e-valentines to everyone you know -- or letting your children have free roam of the Internet to do the same -- take these steps to ensure that the electronic greetings you send and receive are secure and free of computer viruses or other malicious software:

Step No. 1: Explore the options
Electronic valentines are growing in popularity for a variety of reasons. You can send many e-cards free of charge and on the spur of the moment without waiting for the mailman to deliver them. Plus, they give you more choices than 2-D paper cards. For example, e-valentines feature more multimedia aspects, from graphics and video, to music and voice-to-text. 

In addition, this year you can send e-valentines to your social networking “friends” on Facebook, MySpace and other social networks, with web applications from companies such as 123Greetings. You can also check out web sites from greeting card companies, such as Hallmark or American Greetings, or some of the larger e-card companies, such as Blue Mountain, eGreetings or 123Greetings.

When selecting the right e-valentine, you’ll also face some more traditional dilemmas, such as what to say and what type of reaction you hope to get. “When selecting the perfect e-card, first and foremost you’ll want to consider what you want the card to do,” says Hallmark’s Voosen Embry. “Do you want to make ‘em laugh? Or to say ‘awwwww?’”

Step No. 2: Send appropriate content
The growth of e-valentines has also led to web sites, including online greeting card sites, that develop holiday greetings with more risqué content. Experts suggest that before you try sending e-valentines from work or encourage your children to go online to send electronic holiday greetings, you should verify that the web sites you want to use have appropriate content.

One way to ensure that e-valentines will be appropriate is to start with web sites from greeting card companies that you know by reputation, such as print card publishers Hallmark or American Greetings. Some e-card companies also avoid offering cards with adult content. “We’re a family-oriented site, completely safe, and we don’t carry any adult content at all,” says Arvind Kajaria, co-founder of 123Greetings. “They could be funny and a little flirty but nothing suggestive.”

Kajaria, father of a 16-year-old girl, says that it’s important to be open with your children and help guide them to suitable sites. That may mean you preview web sites before allowing your children to use them or using parental controls to block them from accessing inappropriate content, which would include sites peddling adult-themed e-cards.

Step No. 3: Make sure your e-card is legit
Last Valentine’s Day, the FBI warned that some e-valentines being distributed contained a computer virus, the Storm Worm, which linked unsuspecting recipients who opened the cards to a botnet -- a network of computers that becomes controlled by a hacker to conduct theft, send spam or engage in computer attacks. These fake e-mails, known as “phishing” scams, sometimes tried to copy the format of established online greeting firms.

The Greeting Card Association, an industry trade group, warns recipients that a legitimate e-valentine or other e-card will always include the name or personal e-mail address of the sender. The association says that senders will never be identified by generic terms, such as “friend” or “family member.”

Here’s how the association suggests you protect yourself from e-valentine scams:

• Don’t open any attachments or click links If the name or personal email address of the sender isn’t familiar to you, the e-card may be a fake and should be immediately deleted. Whatever you do, don’t click on the link or open any attachments.
  
  Go to the greeting company’s web site Legitimate e-valentine companies provide recipients with a way to access their card directly from their web site. If you have any concerns about the card you receive, manually type the name of the card publisher’s web site URL into your browser window. (Don’t cut and paste the link into your browser because it could be a fake site.) Look for the e-card pickup link on the card company’s web site. Enter the card number or code from the email you received into the appropriate box and your card should appear.
  
• File a complaint If you follow the steps above and no e-valentine appears, the e-card you were sent was likely a fake. The greeting card association urges victims to report e-card scams to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center online.