American cancer society a hoax

IF YOU DOUBT THE POWER of viral marketing, talk to Dennis Shields. Wait, nix that. Shields, a molecular biologist at New York's Yeshiva University, won't take calls on the subject. In 1996, some joker attached Shields' contact information to an e-mail message about a girl dying of cancer. The note claimed that the American Cancer Society would donate 3 cents to the girl's recovery each time it was forwarded.

It was a hoax, of course. But five years later the professor is still swamped with e-mail, and the postman arrives laden with checks, cash and gifts for the unfortunate but fictitious lass. "It doesn't end. It gets worse and worse," says Shields' exasperated assistant. "We just send everything right back." (Keeping the booty would be mail fraud.)

But real charities have seen the potential for legitimate fundraising. At a foot race last October, Yahoo distributed branded Band-Aid boxes that promised $1 to the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation for each person who clicked a pink ribbon on the portal linking to its women's health page. The offer spread via e-mail and it snowballed: Yahoo, which capped its donation at $10,000, saw a 45-fold increase in traffic to that page. A similar promotion with NFL.com, which hoped to attract female visitors, logged 3 million pageviews and cost the NFL a mere $50,000. So everybody wins: The charity gets cash and exposure, and donors get traffic and kudos. As for Shields, if he tires of his current discipline, there's always virology.