Tumbleweed Sues eUniverse for Patent Infringement

REDWOOD CITY, CA - December 27, 2001 - Tumbleweed® Communications Corp. (Nasdaq:TMWD), a leading provider of secure content management solutions for enabling the business Internet, announced today that it has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against online greeting card service eUniverse, Inc. (Nasdaq:EUNI - news). Tumbleweed recently signed patent license agreements with American Greetings Corp. (NYSE:AM - news) and privately held Hallmark Cards, Incorporated, each of which competes with eUniverse in the online greeting card industry. Tumbleweed's U.S. Patent No. 6,192,407 (``Private, Trackable URLs for Directed Document Delivery'') covers technology that allows online providers to uniquely bind content to a digital identity, enabling a host of applications such as online marketing and security content delivery.

About Tumbleweed Communications Corp.
Tumbleweed is a leading provider of solutions for managing secure communication and collaboration to enable the business Internet. Tumbleweed's robust policy-based framework empowers organizations to safely share and protect critical information, increase customer loyalty and privacy and dramatically reduce costs. Tumbleweed is trusted by 1,000 blue-chip customers including American Express, Chevron, Datek Online, the European Union's Joint Research Council, First Union Wachovia, John Deere, Merrill Lynch, Nike, Northern Trust, NTT, Salomon Smith Barney, Travelers and US Food and Drug Administration. One hundred of the Fortune 500 are Tumbleweed customers. Tumbleweed Communications was founded in 1993 and is headquartered in Redwood City, Calif., with offices around the world.

Except for the historical information contained herein, the matters discussed in this press release may constitute forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected, particularly with respect to the security features of Tumbleweed's products and the activities of any third party. In some cases, forward-looking statements can be identified by terminology such as "may," "will," "should," "potential," "continue," "expects," "anticipates," "intends," "plans," "believes," "estimates," and similar expressions. For further cautions about the risks of investing in Tumbleweed, we refer you to the documents Tumbleweed files from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission, particularly Tumbleweed's Form 10-K filed March 30, 2001 and Form 10-Q filed November 13, 2001. Tumbleweed assumes no obligation to update information contained in this press release.