1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electronic mail (E-mail) server, and more particularly to an electronic mail server which applies, to an electronic mail, a process determined based on an instruction from an electronic mail recipient.
2. Description of the Related Art
A conventional electronic mail (E-mail) server has a function to analyze an electronic mail header to perform routing. For example, in Japanese Laid Open Patent Application (JP-A-Heisei 2-241241) is described an electronic mail server in which a mode is set to send back or transfer an electronic mail when an operator is absent such that the electronic mail server is possible to deliver received electronic mails.
However, the electronic mail server has only a function to change routing information. In order to take out a desired one of many electronic mails received by the electronic mail server, it is necessary that the electronic mail server transfers all the received electronic mails to an electronic mail receiving terminal and a user uses a function on the electronic mail receiving terminal.
Also, the electronic mail can be set with a priority in an electronic mail header. An electronic mall with a high priority is primarily received based on the priority. However, since a transmitter sets the priority to an electronic mail in a conventional electronic mail server system, the electronic mail is not always important to a recipient, even if the priority of the received electronic mail is high.
A first problem of the conventional electronic mail server system is in that the user cannot easily take out a desired one from among the many electronic mails received by the electronic mail server. The reason is that the number of electronic mails to be receive tends to increase more than the number of electronic mails to be transmitted because of a broadcasting function and a mailing list. Accordingly, when the many electronic mails are used, it becomes difficult to take out a necessary one from among the many electronic mails.
A second problem is in that a wasteful communication expenses is required in the dialup connection environment. This is because it is necessary that all the electronic mails delivered to the user are transferred to an electronic mail receiving terminal and then a filtering function of the electronic mail receiving terminal is used.
A third problem is in that if the electronic mail server is frequently accessed, there is a case that the mail box of the electronic mail server overflows so that the recipient cannot receive any electronic mails. This is because the electronic mail server stores received electronic mails in the mail box regardless of whether the each of the received electronic mails is necessary or unnecessary to the recipient.
In addition to the above reference, a destination control system in a server is known in Japanese Laid Open Patent Application (JP-A-Heisei 4-113740). In this reference, the server is composed of an electronic mail receiving section (15), an analyzing section (16) for analyzing the received electronic mail, and a manager section (14) including a distribution processing section (17) for distributing the received electronic mail into destinations based on the analyzing result. When a transmission request is received from a terminal, the manager automatically determines the terminal to distribute the received electronic mails.
Also, an apparatus for automatically limiting recipients of messages is described in Japanese Laid Open Patent Application (JP-A-Heisei 8-263404 corresponding to U.S. patent application Ser. No. 346,715 filed on Nov. 30, 1994). In this reference, a recipient specifying data is added to an electronic mail, so that the number of junk electronic mails can be decreased. The recipient specifying data of the electronic mail header is a non-address information which specifies a recipient who receives the electronic mail. That is, whether or not the electronic mail should be provided to the recipient is determined based on the non-address information of the electronic mail and information of the recipient.
However, the above problems cannot be solved by the above references.