JP2003316701A - E-mail relay device and method, e-mail relay program, and medium with the program recorded thereon - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an E-mail relay device and a method of transmitting preview information corresponding unsolicited mails in a wide range to a user. <P>SOLUTION: The e-mail relay device and the e-mail relay method are characterized in that they are provided with a receiving means for receiving an E-mail, a word information extraction means for extracting text data from the E-mail to divide it into words and to extract the divided word information, a coordinates determination means for determining coordinates corresponding to the extracted word information with reference to a word concept database memorizing beforehand the word and the coordinates in a space matched with the word, a similar word determination means for determining a similar word located near the coordinates corresponding to the determined word information with reference to the word concept database, a preview creation means for creating an E-mail preview using the similar word, and a transmission means for transmitting the preview to a user terminal. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2004,JPO

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a technique for relaying an electronic mail via a computer network, and more particularly to a technique for relaying an electronic mail based on the judgment of the recipient of the electronic mail.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art With the popularization of inexpensive and high-speed computers and computer networks, electronic mail is becoming popular as a means of social communication such as telephone calls and letters. This tendency is further accelerated by the spread of e-mail technology using mobile phones.

[0003] In the conventional communication means, it has been a social problem that a trader conducts sales activities to an unspecified number of people for commercial purposes. For example, as a business activity using a telephone, a business operator calls a telephone number listed in a telephone directory in order to perform the business activity. The same is true for sales activities using email, but the impact is much more serious. The cost required for a business operator to send an e-mail relating to business activities using the Internet is inexpensive because it is only the price paid to a communication business whose business is to connect a computer to the Internet. Therefore, as a means to replace conventional communication means such as letters and telephones, the trader can inexpensively send a large amount of advertisement regarding business activities to consumers by sending an electronic mail.

Further, since tens of thousands to millions of e-mails can be transmitted within a few hours, many recipients receive a large amount of e-mails that they are not interested in. The recipient is forced to select important e-mails from the received e-mails and to remove the other e-mails, which compels the time cost.

Further, the electronic mail address can be mechanically generated by combining a plurality of characters, and the trader can make the mechanically generated electronic mail regardless of whether the destination exists or not. Send. Therefore, a user who has not disclosed the e-mail address will receive a commercial e-mail with no interest. Also,
Since the telecommunications carrier that connects the Internet to the Internet user's computer and mobile phone may charge the recipient a usage fee according to the number of received e-mails, the recipient may send an unspecified majority to the recipient. Carriers may be charged for receiving targeted commercial emails.

[0006] In response to these problems, a telecommunications carrier uses a part of an e-mail or a part of the e-mail that is relayed from the Internet or the like connected to an operating computer network. Information (referred to as preview information) that allows the user to determine whether or not it should be received, receives the user's judgment based on the preview information, and decides whether to relay the email. We are taking measures to provide such services.

For example, the address or subject of the sender of the electronic mail, or the first sentence of the body is pre-transmitted as preview information. Users are involved in sales activities targeting an unspecified number of people, such as when they find an address that they can't remember at all in the preview information, or when the subject is "profitable service" or "introduction of dating site" In the case of text, by sending a decision of refusal of reception to the communication carrier, it is not necessary to receive the specific e-mail itself. The service of such a carrier enables the user to reject unsolicited email without receiving the email.

[0008] Further, as a method of summarizing the contents of an electronic mail in advance as preview information and transmitting it in advance, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No.
Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 0-299699 discloses "a compact in a state in which a character string of a specific expression included in an e-mail addressed to a mobile terminal is converted into a character or a graphic which is more compact than the character string and the e-mail can be displayed by a display means. In addition to summarizing it in an e-mail, this compact e-mail is stored with reference information to the prescribed action activation information added, and upon receipt of the request from the mobile terminal, the compact e-mail corresponding to the request is delivered to the mobile terminal. Yes. ”The mail delivery method is described. According to this method, "a mobile terminal equipped with a display unit having a limited display information amount can easily read electronic mail and other electronic information".

Further, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2001-228640 discloses an extraction process for extracting text information from an electronic mail,
An electronic mail transfer method including a summary process of obtaining a summary sentence of sentence information according to a detected keyword obtained by searching a keyword included in sentence information is described. According to this method, it is possible to "quickly and easily grasp the outline of the content of a long text even on a terminal that has a small display portion and is difficult to read a long text." .

[0010]

In the mail relay service based on the preview information described above, it is determined whether the user is a junk mail from the text that is included in the electronic mail and can be fixedly extracted. Is extracting information for. On the other hand, a company sending unsolicited email creates an email without any clue indicating that the user is unsolicited email in the preview information. For example, the destination of an electronic mail is changed every time when it is transmitted, or the destination of an electronic mail that does not exist is replaced and transmitted.

As a result, the recipient cannot judge from the destination in the preview information whether or not it is a junk mail. For example, the subject of the e-mail is "Urgent: Notification,""I changed the schedule for tomorrow." When an e-mail describing an advertisement is sent, the user cannot determine whether the e-mail is a junk e-mail based on the subject alone.

Furthermore, even if measures are taken to randomly extract one sentence from the body of the e-mail and add it to the preview information, a body consisting of only content unrelated to the advertisement, such as a newsletter newsletter, is created. Then, it is not effective for an email in which link information relating to advertising is mixed. For example, paid WW on the Internet
For emails that contain link information that automatically connects to the W site, the text information that is fixedly acquired from the body of the email provides preview information that is effective in preventing spam. Cannot be created.

Therefore, the present invention has been made to solve the above-mentioned problems and problems of the prior art,
An object of the present invention is to send preview information based on a deep content of an email to a user, even if the email is disguised so as not to have a clue that it is a junk email on the surface. It is an object of the present invention to provide an electronic mail relay device and method capable of transmitting preview information corresponding to a wide range of spam mails to users.

[0014]

In order to achieve the above object, an electronic mail relay device according to the present invention includes a receiving means for receiving an electronic mail, text data extracted from the electronic mail, and the text data is used as a word. And a word concept database that stores in advance the word information extraction means that extracts the divided word information, the word and the coordinates in the space associated with the word, and the word concept database is referred to and extracted. Coordinate determining means for determining the coordinates corresponding to the determined word information, a similar word determining means for determining a similar word located near the coordinates corresponding to the determined word information, and a similar word A preview creating means for creating an email preview using the email and a sending means for sending the email preview to the user terminal are provided. Characterized in that was. According to the present invention, it is possible to provide an e-mail preview including a word that briefly describes the content described in an e-mail without causing the recipient to browse the e-mail itself.

Further, the coordinate determining means refers to the word concept database, acquires the coordinates corresponding to the determined word information, respectively, and based on the plurality of acquired coordinates, 1
It is characterized by determining one coordinate.

Further, the electronic mail relay method according to the present invention includes a receiving step of receiving an electronic mail, extracting text data from the electronic mail, dividing the text data into words, and extracting the divided word information. A word information extracting step, a coordinate determining step of determining a coordinate corresponding to the extracted word information by referring to a word concept database in which the word and coordinates in a space associated with the word are stored in advance; Referring to the concept database, a similar word determining step of determining a similar word located near the coordinates corresponding to the determined word information, a preview creating step of creating an email preview using the similar word,
And a step of transmitting the electronic mail preview to the user terminal. According to the present invention, it is possible to create an email preview including words that briefly describe the content of the entire email.

Further, in the coordinate determining step, the word concept database is referred to, the coordinates corresponding to the extracted word information are respectively acquired, and based on the plurality of acquired coordinates, 1 is calculated.
It is characterized by determining one coordinate.

The electronic mail relay program of the present invention and the storage medium storing the electronic mail relay program are the receiving means for receiving the electronic mail, the text data is extracted from the electronic mail, and the text data is divided into words. , The word information extraction means for extracting the divided word information, and a word concept database in which the word and the coordinates in the space associated with the word are stored in advance, and the coordinates corresponding to the extracted word information are referred to. Determining means, a similar word determining means for determining a similar word located near the coordinates corresponding to the determined word information by referring to the word concept database, and creating an email preview using the similar word Preview creation means to
It is characterized in that the computer is made to function as a transmission means for transmitting the electronic mail preview to the user terminal.

Further, the coordinate determining means refers to the word concept database, acquires the coordinates corresponding to the extracted word information, respectively, and based on the plurality of acquired coordinates, 1
It is characterized by determining one coordinate.

Further, the electronic mail relay apparatus according to the present invention includes a receiving means for receiving an electronic mail, a link information extracting means for extracting link information from the electronic mail, and a link destination based on the content corresponding to the extracted link information. Link information acquisition means for extracting information, extracting text data from an email, dividing the text data of the email into words, extracting word information of the divided email, and link information Extract the text data from the, and divide the text data of the link destination information into words,
Word information extraction means for extracting word information of the divided link destination information, a word concept database in which a word and coordinates in a space associated with the word are stored in advance, and the word concept database is referred to and extracted. Coordinate determining means for determining the coordinates corresponding to the word information of the specified email and the coordinates corresponding to the word information of the link destination information, and the coordinates corresponding to the determined word information of the email by referring to the word concept database And a similar word determining means for determining a similar word of the link information located near the coordinates corresponding to the similar word of the email and the word information of the link information located in the vicinity of the similar word and the link information of the email A preview creation method that creates an email preview using similar words in Characterized by comprising a transmitting means for transmitting to. According to the present invention, it is possible to provide an email preview including a simple word indicating the content of link information without causing the recipient to browse the email itself.

Further, the coordinate determining means refers to the word concept database, acquires the coordinates corresponding to the extracted word information of the electronic mail, respectively, and based on the acquired plurality of coordinates, acquires the word information of the electronic mail. Determine one coordinate,
Further, it is characterized in that the coordinates corresponding to the word information of the link destination information are respectively acquired, and one coordinate is determined as the coordinates of the word information of the link information based on the acquired plural coordinates.

Further, the electronic mail relay method according to the present invention includes a receiving step of receiving an electronic mail, a link information extracting step of extracting link information from the electronic mail, and a link destination from a content corresponding to the extracted link information. Link information acquisition process of extracting information, extracting text data from email, dividing text data of the email into words, extracting word information of the divided email, and link information Extract the text data from the, and divide the text data of the link destination information into words,
A word information extraction step of extracting the word information of the divided link destination information, and a word concept database in which the word and the coordinates in the space associated with the word are stored in advance are referred to, and the extracted email A coordinate determination step of determining the coordinates corresponding to the word information and the coordinates corresponding to the word information of the link destination information, and referring to the word concept database, are located near the coordinates corresponding to the determined word information of the e-mail. Using a similar word determination step of determining a similar word of the link destination information located near the coordinates corresponding to the similar word of the email and the word information of the link destination information, and the similar word of the email and the similar word of the link destination information A preview creation step of creating an email preview by sending the email and a sending step of sending the email preview to the user terminal. Characterized in that it. According to the present invention, it is possible to create a preview including simple words indicating the contents of link information.

Further, in the coordinate determining step, the word concept database is referred to, the coordinates corresponding to the extracted word information of the electronic mail are respectively acquired, and the word information of the electronic mail is acquired based on the plurality of acquired coordinates. Determine one coordinate,
Further, it is characterized in that the coordinates corresponding to the word information of the link destination information are respectively acquired, and one coordinate of the word information of the link information is determined based on the acquired plurality of coordinates.

The electronic mail relay program of the present invention and the storage medium storing the electronic mail relay program are the receiving means for receiving the electronic mail, the link information extracting means for extracting the link information from the electronic mail, and the extracted information. Link destination information acquisition means for extracting link destination information from the content corresponding to the link information, extracting text data from the email, dividing the text data of the email into words, and word information of the divided email , The text data is extracted from the link destination information, the text data of the link destination information is divided into words,
The word information extracting means for extracting the word information of the divided link destination information, and the word concept database in which the word and the coordinates in the space associated with the word are stored in advance are referred to, and the extracted email It is located in the vicinity of the coordinates corresponding to the word information and the coordinates corresponding to the word information of the linked information and the coordinate determining means for determining the coordinates corresponding to the word information of the link destination information, and the coordinates corresponding to the determined word information of the email A similar word determining means for determining a similar word of the link destination information located near the coordinates corresponding to the similar word of the email and the word information of the link destination information, and a similar word of the email and the similar word of the link destination information are used. As a preview creating means for creating an electronic mail preview and as a sending means for sending an electronic mail preview to a user terminal. And characterized by causing a computer to function.

Further, the coordinate determining means refers to the word concept database, respectively acquires the coordinates corresponding to the extracted word information of the electronic mail, and based on the plurality of acquired coordinates, the word information of the electronic mail is obtained. Determine one coordinate,
Further, it is characterized in that the coordinates corresponding to the word information of the link destination information are respectively acquired, and one coordinate of the word information of the link destination information is determined based on the plurality of acquired coordinates.

Further, the word concept database is characterized in that adjacent coordinates are assigned to words that are conceptually related. Further, the similar word determining means is characterized in that the similarity between the coordinates of the word information and the coordinates of the word stored in the word concept database is calculated, and a word having a predetermined similarity is set as the similar word.

[0027]

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION Embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail below with reference to the drawings. In all the drawings for explaining the embodiments, the same reference numerals are given to those having the same function, and the repeated description thereof will be omitted.

The electronic mail relay device 2 according to the present invention is
For example, it is an electronic mail server, and as shown in FIG. 1, a transmission / reception unit 2-1, a relay unit 2-2, an electronic mail buffer 2-3, a preview creation unit 2-4, and a coordinate determination unit 2-.
5, the similar word determination unit 2-6, and the word concept database 2
-7 and. The e-mail relay device 2 is connected to the e-mail sender terminal device 1 used by the e-mail sender and the e-mail receiver terminal device 3 used by the e-mail receiver via the communication network 4, for example, a computer network. .

The transmission / reception unit 2-1 transmits and receives electronic mail. In addition, an electronic mail preview, which will be described later, is transmitted, and an answer as to whether to receive the email or to reject the email is received.

The relay section 2-2 receives the electronic mail from the transmission / reception section 2-1, stores the electronic mail in an electronic mail buffer 2-3 described later, and stores the electronic mail in the electronic mail buffer 2-.
The electronic mail stored in 3 is referred to, a duplicate of the electronic mail is created, and the duplicate of the electronic mail is transmitted to a preview creating unit 2-4 described later. Also, the electronic mail preview is received from the preview creating unit 2-4, and is transmitted to the mail receiving side terminal device 3 via the transmitting / receiving unit 2-1 and the communication network 4. Also, based on the response from the recipient who viewed the email preview, if the recipient's response is reception, the email corresponding to the email preview stored in the email buffer 2-3 is received. Is taken out and transmitted to the terminal device 3 on the mail transmitting side. If the reply of the recipient is the refusal of reception, the electronic mail corresponding to the electronic mail preview stored in the electronic mail buffer 2-3 is deleted or the electronic mail is taken out and the mail sending terminal Reply to device 1.

The electronic mail buffer 2-3 temporarily stores electronic mail. The stored e-mail can be stored, referred to, and retrieved via the relay unit 2-2.

The preview creating section 2-4 has a relay section 2-2.
Receives a copy of an email from and the text data in the email copy (called the email text)
And retrieves one or more words (called email constituent words) contained in the email text,
A word list (called an e-mail constituent word list) is created from the constituent words of the e-mail, and the coordinate determination unit 2 described later
Send to 5. Here, the text data refers to all text data including Title of the header part of the electronic mail and words in the body, and excludes images, voices, and data of other execution programs.

As a method of acquiring the constituent words of the electronic mail, for example, a word list is previously built in the preview creating section 2-4 and the word list is compared with the electronic mail text to acquire the word list. In addition, a morphological analysis program that divides text into words is built in the preview creation unit 2-4 in advance,
A method of acquiring by activating the morphological analysis program is used.

Also, the coordinates corresponding to the electronic mail constituent word list (referred to as the coordinates of the electronic mail constituent word list) are received from the coordinate determining unit 2-5, which will be described later, and these coordinates will be described later. Send to. Further, the similar word determination unit 2-6 acquires a list of similar words selected from the coordinates of the electronic mail constituent word list (referred to as a similar word list of the electronic mail constituent word list). Further, the electronic mail text and the similar word list of the electronic mail constituent word list are used to create text data (referred to as an electronic mail preview) representing the content of the electronic mail, and the text data is transmitted to the relay unit 2-2.

The contents of the electronic mail preview are text data composed of information in the header or body of the electronic mail, a similar word list of the electronic mail constituent word list, and the like. For example, a part or all of the header in the email and a similar word list of the email constituent word list, or only a similar word list of the email constituent word list, or the first line of the body of the email and the email constituent word list Is a list of similar words. The content of the email preview can be selected in various ways.

The coordinate determining section 2-5 is a preview creating section 2
-4 from the electronic mail constituent word list, and one coordinate in the multidimensional space corresponding to one or a plurality of electronic mail constituent words included in the list, the word concept database 2-7 described later. The coordinates of the e-mail constituent word list are determined based on the acquired coordinates of the constituent e-mail. The coordinates of the determined e-mail constituent word list are transmitted to the preview creating unit 2-4. The email constituent words stored in the word concept database 2-7 are the target of the process for determining the coordinates of the email constituent word list. If all the email constituent words are not stored in the word concept database 2-7, or if the coordinates of all the email constituent words are the coordinates of the origin, the coordinates of the email constituent word list Is the origin (0,0).

When one or more words having coordinates other than the origin are obtained for the determined coordinates of the electronic mail constituent words, the coordinates are averaged and used as the coordinates of the electronic mail constituent word list. As a calculation method for averaging the coordinates, for example, a method of adding and averaging the elements of the coordinates for each dimension, or first dividing the elements of the coordinates of the individual email constituent words by the sum of squares of the elements, A method is used in which the average of the calculated coordinates is equal to or close to the coordinates of the individual email constituent words, such as the method of averaging the results for each individual dimension. However, in multiple email composition words,
If there are multiple email constituent words with the same coordinates, the coordinates of those email constituent words will be closer to the calculated coordinates of the email constituent word list than the coordinates of other email constituent words. .

The similar word determining unit 2-6 receives the coordinates of the electronic mail constituent word list from the preview creating unit 2-4,
One or more words having coordinates near the coordinates of the electronic mail constituent word list are converted into a word concept database 2-
It is acquired by referring to 7. The acquired one or more words are used as a similar word list of the email constituent word list,
Is output. The similar words to the coordinates of the e-mail constituent word list are, for example, compared with the coordinates of all the words in the word concept database 2-7 and the coordinates of the e-mail constituent word list to determine the word concept database. Calculate the degree of similarity between the words in S2-7 and the coordinates of the email constituent word list,
It is determined by selecting a word having a high degree of similarity.

The degree of similarity is calculated by, for example, a method of calculating the reciprocal of the value obtained by adding the absolute values of the differences between the values of the elements of the two dimensions having the same dimension (infinity in the case of the same coordinates), A method of calculating the reciprocal of the sum of squares of the difference between the values of elements of the same dimension of two coordinates (however, in the case of the same coordinates, it is infinity), and the cosine of the angle formed by the position vectors of the two coordinates And the like. In other words,
A calculation method is used such that the closer the coordinates are, the larger the value becomes.

As a method of selecting a similar word from the obtained similarities, a method of outputting a certain number of words having a high similarity or a similarity determined in advance before using the electronic mail relay device 2 A method of sequentially outputting words with a high degree of similarity is used, such as a method of outputting all the words of which the frequency is equal to or higher than the frequency.

The word concept database 2-7 is a database in which one or a plurality of words are associated with the coordinates in the multidimensional space which are given in advance for each of the plurality of words and are stored. Here, the multidimensional space is a space having an arbitrary number of dimensions of 1, 2, 3 or more. In this space, the coordinates of the individual words in the multidimensional space are set so that related words, for example, conceptually common words, are close to each other. Coordinates consist of as many elements as there are dimensions in a multidimensional space.

The coordinates given to the words stored in the word concept database 2-7 may be coordinates determined by a human, for example. References (Kasahara, Matsuzawa, Ishikawa: Similarity discrimination of everyday words using Japanese dictionary, IPSJ Transactions 3
8 (7), P. The coordinates may be automatically determined from a national language dictionary as described in 1272-1284 (1997)). Furthermore, the literature (Schutze., H .:
Dimensions of Meaning, Proc
of Supercomputing 92, p. 7
87-796 (1992)), it may be automatically determined using a text corpus of newspaper articles and the like.

Further, the electronic mail relay device 2 can be realized by configuring hardware including a CPU (central processing unit) 5 as shown in FIG. FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a hardware configuration when the electronic mail relay device 2 of FIG. 1 is realized by using a CPU. In FIG. 2, a memory 5, a communication IF 8, and a hard disk 7 are connected to a CPU 5 that controls the entire system via a bus 104. The hard disk 7 stores a preview creating program 7-1, a coordinate determining program 7-2, and a similar word determining program 7-3.

Here, the preview creating program 7-1
Receives a duplicate of the email from the relay unit 2-2, extracts the email text in the duplicate of the email,
The e-mail constituent words included in the e-mail text are acquired, an e-mail constituent word list is created from the e-mail constituent words, and the e-mail constituent word list is transmitted to the coordinate determination unit 2-5 to determine the coordinates. The coordinates of the electronic mail constituent word list are received from the unit 2-5, the coordinates of the electronic mail constituent word list are transmitted to the similar word determining unit 2-6, and the electronic word constituent word list of the electronic mail constituent word list is transmitted from the similar word determining unit 2-6. As a preview creating means for acquiring a similar word list, creating an electronic mail preview from the electronic mail text and the similar word list of the electronic mail constituent word list, and transmitting the electronic mail preview to the relay unit 2-2,
A program that causes a computer to function.

Further, the coordinate determining program 7-2 receives the electronic mail constituent word list from the preview creating section 2-4 and corresponds to one or a plurality of electronic mail constituent words included in the electronic mail constituent word list. One coordinate in the dimensional space is obtained by referring to the word concept database 2-7, the coordinates of the email constituent word list are determined based on the obtained coordinates of the email constituent word, and the determination is made. It is a program that causes a computer to function as a coordinate determining unit that transmits the coordinates of the created email constituent word list to the preview creating unit 2-4.

The similar word determination program 7-3 receives the coordinates of the electronic mail constituent word list from the preview creating section 2-4, and has one or a plurality of coordinates having coordinates near the coordinates of the electronic mail constituent word list. The word is acquired as a similar word list of the electronic mail constituent word list by referring to the word concept database 2-7, and the similar word list of the electronic mail constituent word list is transmitted to the preview creating unit 2-4. It is a program that causes a computer to function as a similar word determining unit.

Here, the preview creating program 7-
1, the coordinate determination program 7-2 and the similar word determination program 7-3 are described as an example in which the hard disk is provided, but a software package such as a CD
It can be provided in the form of an information storage medium such as ROM, ROM, RAM, flexible disk, memory card. In this case, the programs stored in the medium are installed in a storage device incorporated in the hardware system, for example, a hard disk, so that the programs are executed, and the preview creating means 2-
4, coordinate determining means 2-5, and similar word determining means 2-6 can be realized. The preview creating program 7-1, the coordinate determining program 7-2, and the similar word determining program 7-3 are transmitted by communication, for example, by a server.
It may be provided.

Next, the operation of the electronic mail relay device will be described with reference to FIG.
From now on, it will be described with reference to FIG. e-mail address,
For example, yamada @ aaa. From the terminal device 1 of the mail transmitting side having the co.jp, an electronic mail is sent via the communication network 4 to an electronic mail address, for example, tanaka @ bbb.
co. A case will be described as an example where the mail is transmitted to the terminal device 3 on the mail receiving side having jp. For example, as shown in FIG. 3, in the transmitted electronic mail 9, as the sender, "Fr
om: yamada @ aaa. co. jp ”and“ To: tanaka @ bbb. co. jp ”, the title is“ Title: contact information ”and the body is“ a chance to meet new love. Please reply"
Is described.

The electronic mail transmitted from the mail transmitting side terminal 1 to the electronic mail relay device 2 via the communication network 4, for example, a computer network is received by the transmitting / receiving unit 2-1. The electronic mail received by the transmission / reception unit 2-1 is transmitted to the relay unit 2-2. The processing in the relay unit 2-2 will be described with reference to FIG. When the relay unit 2-2 receives the email from the transmission / reception unit 2-1 (S41), the relay unit 2-2 stores the email in the email buffer 2-3 (S42). Further, the electronic mail stored in the electronic mail buffer 2-3 is referenced to create a duplicate of the electronic mail (S43), and the duplicate of the electronic mail is transmitted to the preview creating unit 2-4 (S44).

The process of creating the electronic mail constituent word list in the preview creating section 2-4 will be described with reference to FIG. Upon receipt of the duplicate of the email, the preview creating unit 2-4 selects and extracts the body portion ("A chance to grow new love. Please reply") as the email text (S51). In this embodiment, a morphological analysis program Chasen (Matsumoto et al .: Japanese morphological analysis system "ChaSen" version 2.2.1 Instruction Manual (2000)) is used as a method for acquiring a word list, and a preview is created. The section 2-4 incorporates the morphological analysis program, and by activating it, the e-mail constituent words were acquired.
As a result, {new, love, sprout, encounter, of,
An opportunity. ,Please reply,. }, The text is divided into words, and the e-mail constituent words are acquired (S52).

As a method of acquiring the word list, any method may be used as long as it is a program for extracting words from the text, in addition to the morphological analysis program described above. In this way, an e-mail composing word list is created as a word list for each acquired e-mail composing word (S53), and the e-mail composing word list is transmitted to the coordinate determining unit 2-5 ( S54).

The process of calculating the coordinates of the electronic mail constituent word list in the coordinate determination unit 2-5 will be described with reference to FIGS. 6 and 9. Upon receiving the electronic mail constituent word list (S61), the coordinate determination unit 2-5 refers to the word concept database 2-7 and determines the coordinates of the electronic mail constituent word (S62). For example, the word concept database 2-7
As shown in FIG. 7, when the number of dimensions is 2, the coordinate of the two-dimensional space for one or a plurality of words, for example, (0.9, 0.9 ), (0.8, 0.8) for "budding", (0.2, 0.3) for "chance", (0.
2, 0.5), for "encounter" (0.5, 0.
5) is assigned. The arrangement of words in the two-dimensional space (plane) corresponding to this word concept database 2-7 is as shown in FIG.

FIG. 9 is a flowchart of the routine for obtaining the coordinates of the electronic mail constituent words (S62). The coordinate determination unit 2-5 uses the word concept database 2-7 for the email constituent words of the received email constituent word list.
And confirm whether or not it is stored (S91),
If it is stored, the coordinates corresponding to the electronic mail constituent word are acquired (S92). If it is not stored, the procedure for acquiring the coordinates of another e-mail word is repeated (S93).

The above email constituent words {new, love,
It's the opportunity to grow, meet, meet, and so on. , Oh,
please reply,. } In the word concept database 2-
Since the word stored in 7 is {love, sprout, chance, reply}, the coordinates of these are acquired. Coordinates for these words (0.9, 0.9): love,
(0.8, 0.8): Sprouting, (0.2, 0.3):
Chance, (0.2, 0.5): A reply is acquired from the word concept database 2-7 (S62).

Next, the coordinates of the electronic mail constituent word list are determined based on the acquired coordinates of the electronic mail constituent words (S63, S64, S65). For example, the coordinates of the email constituent word list are averaged to obtain the coordinates of the email constituent word list. Here, as a method of averaging the coordinates of the electronic mail constituent word list, a method of averaging the element values for each dimension of the coordinates of the two-dimensional space is used. in this case,
The average of the elements in the first dimension is (0.9 + 0.8 + 0.2 +
0.2) /4=0.525, the average of the elements of the second dimension is (0.9 + 0.8 + 0.3 + 0.5) /4=0.625
Therefore, the coordinates of the email constituent word list are (0.
525, 0.625). The coordinates are transmitted to the preview creating section 2-4 (S66).

If all the e-mail constituent words are not stored in the word concept database 2-7, or
If the coordinates of all the email constituent words are the coordinates of the origin, the coordinates of the email constituent word list are the origin (0, 0).
(S64). These coordinates are displayed in the preview creation section 2-4.
(S66).

The preview creating section 2-4 coordinates the email constituent word list (0.525, 0.6) corresponding to the email constituent word list extracted from the email text.
25) is received from the coordinate determining unit 2-5, and the coordinates of the electronic mail constituent word list are transmitted to the similar word determining unit 2-6.

Referring to FIG. 10, the similar word selecting process of the electronic mail constituent word list in the similar word determining unit 2-6 will be described.
explain. The similar word determining unit 2-6 is used by the preview creating unit 2
-4 to the coordinates of the email constituent word list (0.52
5, 0.625) is received (S101), the coordinates of all the words in the word concept database 2-7 are extracted one by one, and the similarity with the coordinates (0.525, 0.625) is obtained. Is calculated (S102, S103). As a method of calculating the degree of similarity, for example, the reciprocal of the square root of the sum of squares of the difference between the elements in each dimension of the two coordinates is used, and the degree of similarity when the two coordinates match is infinite. For example, "encounter"
Coordinates (0.5, 0.5) and coordinates (0.525, 0.6)
The similarity of 25) is

[0059]

[Equation 1] Is calculated.

Similarly, the similarities with "love", "budding", "chance", and "answer" are 2.150 and 3.0.
68, 2.176, and 2.872. A similar word to be transmitted is selected based on the result of this similarity (S104),
The list of similar words is transmitted to the preview creating section 2-4. Any method may be used as a method of selecting the similar word as long as it is a method of preferentially selecting a word having a high similarity. Here, two words having a high degree of similarity, {encounter, sprout}, are sent to the preview creating unit 2-4 as a similar word list of the email constituent word list (S.
105).

When the preview creating section 2-4 receives the similar word list of the electronic mail constituent word list from the similar word determining section 2-6, the similar word list {encounter, sprout}.
And create a preview text using a duplicate of the email. For example, in the text after From and the text after Tit1e in the email header, and in the similar word list {encounter, sprouting} of the email constituent word list,
A standard text is added to create an e-mail preview 10 as shown in FIG. 11, for example.

In the email preview 10 of FIG. 11,
As a standard text, "I received an email with the following contents. Do you want to receive it?", "Sender:", "Contents", and "Sender:" The text "Yamada@aaa.co.jp" after From in the e-mail header is described, and "Encounter and sprout" is described in the portion in which "Content:" is described. The preview creating section 2-4 transmits this electronic mail preview to the relay section 2-1.

The relay section 2-2 displays the electronic mail preview 1
When 0 is received from the preview creating unit 2-4, the electronic mail preview 10 is transmitted to the mail receiving side terminal device 3 via the transmitting / receiving unit 2-1. As a transmission method, a method capable of transmitting text data from the electronic mail relay device 2 to the receiving side terminal device 3, such as a method of transmitting text in an electronic mail format or a method of transmitting / receiving text data via a different computer network. To use.

The recipient browses the electronic mail preview 10 by using the terminal device 3 on the mail receiving side, determines whether to receive or reject the electronic mail corresponding to the electronic mail preview 10, and returns the answer. Is transmitted to the electronic mail relay device 2 via the communication network 4. To send the answer,
A method capable of sending text data from the mail receiving side terminal device 3 to the electronic mail relay device 2 is used, such as a method of transmitting text in an electronic mail format or a method of transmitting / receiving text data via a different computer network.

The reply from the recipient is received by the transmission / reception unit 2-1 of the electronic mail relay device 2. The transmitter / receiver 2-1
When the reply from the recipient is received, the reply is sent to the relay unit 2-
Send to 2. When the reply of the recipient is reception, the relay unit 2-2 takes out the e-mail corresponding to the e-mail preview 10 stored in the e-mail buffer 2-3, and through the communication network 4. , To the mail receiving side terminal device 3. If the recipient's answer is rejection, the electronic mail corresponding to the electronic mail preview 10 stored in the electronic mail buffer 2-3 is deleted or the electronic mail is taken out, and the communication network 4 is opened. A reply is sent to the terminal device 1 on the mail sending side via.

Next, an electronic mail relay device according to the second embodiment will be described. The email relay device 2 according to the second embodiment is, for example, an email server,
As shown in FIG. 12, the e-mail relay device 2 described in the first embodiment includes a link destination information acquisition unit 2-8 that acquires information that can be acquired via the communication network 4, for example, link destination information. .

The link information acquisition unit 2-8 is the transmission / reception unit 2
-1, and a description relating to referenceable information that is connected to the preview creating unit 2-4 and is extracted from the copy of the electronic mail from the preview creating unit 2-4 (referred to as link information).
To receive. For example, as the link information, URL (u
It is a uniform resource locator, and HTTP (Hyper Text Transfer).
rProtocol) description and FTP (Fi1e
Description by Transfer Protocol),
It is a description based on a protocol capable of exchanging data including text data in a general computer network.

Upon receiving the link information, the link destination information acquisition unit 2-8 refers to the link information and acquires the link destination information via the communication network 4. For example, as the link destination information, a general text file or HTML
(Hyper Text Markup Langua
Any information may be used as long as the information includes text data such as a ge) format file. In other words, it refers to data that includes words in the text, such as images, sounds,
Data of other execution programs is excluded. The link destination information acquisition unit 2-8 transmits the acquired link destination information to the preview creation unit 2-4.

Further, as in the first embodiment, the preview creating section 2-4 receives a copy of the electronic mail stored in the electronic mail buffer 2-3 from the relay section 2-2, and the electronic mail of the electronic mail is received. Extracts text data (called e-mail text) in the duplicate, acquires one or more words (called e-mail constituent words) and link information contained in the e-mail text, and extracts from the e-mail constituent words , A word list (called an electronic mail constituent word list) is created and transmitted to the coordinate determination unit 2-5. Here, the text data is the Title of the header part of the email.
And all the text data including the words in the body, and excludes images, sounds, and data of other execution programs.

As a method of acquiring the constituent words of the electronic mail, for example, a method in which a word list is previously built in the preview creating section 2-4 and the word list is compared with the electronic mail text is acquired. In addition, a morphological analysis program that divides text into words is built in the preview creation unit 2-4 in advance,
A method of acquiring by activating the morphological analysis program is used.

Also, the coordinates corresponding to the electronic mail constituent word list (referred to as the coordinates of the electronic mail constituent word list) are received from the coordinate determining unit 2-5, and the coordinates are transmitted to the similar word determining unit 2-6 described later. To do. Further, the similar word determination unit 2-6 acquires a list of similar words selected from the coordinates of the electronic mail constituent word list (referred to as a similar word list of the electronic mail constituent word list).

Further, the link information is transmitted to the link destination information acquisition unit 2-8, the link destination information is received from the link destination information acquisition unit 2-8, and the text data (link destination information text) in the link destination information is received. Call). Furthermore, one or more words (called a link destination information constituent word) included in the link destination information text are acquired, and a word list (called a link destination information constituent word list) is created from the link destination information constituent words. And transmits it to the coordinate determination unit 2-5. As a method of acquiring the link destination information constituent word, for example, a method in which a word list is built in the preview creation unit 2-4 in advance and the word list is compared with the link destination information text,
A method is used in which the morpheme analysis program for dividing the text into words is stored in advance in the preview creating section 2-4 and the morpheme analysis program is activated to acquire the morpheme analysis program.

Further, coordinates corresponding to the link destination information constituent word list (referred to as coordinates of the link destination information constituent word list) are received from the coordinate determining unit 2-5, and the coordinates are transmitted to the similar word determining unit 2-6. To do. Further, a list of similar words selected from the coordinates of the link destination information constituent word list (called a similar word list of the link destination information constituent word list) is acquired from the similar word determining unit 2-6.

Text data representing the content of an electronic mail (called an electronic mail preview) by the electronic mail text, the similar word list of the electronic mail constituent word list, the link information, and the similar word list of the link destination information constituent word list. ) Is created and transmitted to the relay unit 2-2.

The contents of the electronic mail preview include all or part of the header in the electronic mail and a similar word list of the electronic mail constituent word list, or all or part of the link information and similar words of the link destination information constituent word list. It is a list. In other words, the email text and a list of similar words in the email constituent word list, link information,
It is text data composed of a list of similar words of the link destination information constituent word list, information in the header or body of the duplicated electronic mail, and link destination information. The content of the email preview can be selected in various ways.

Further, the electronic mail relay device 2 can be realized by configuring hardware including a CPU (central processing unit) 5 as shown in FIG. FIG.
FIG. 13 is a block diagram showing a hardware configuration when the electronic mail relay device 2 of FIG. 12 is realized by using a CPU. In FIG. 13, the CPU 5 that controls the whole is
The memory 6, the communication IF 8 and the hard disk 7 are connected via the bus 104. The hard disk 7 stores a preview creation program 7-1, a coordinate determination program 7-2, a similar word determination program 7-3, and a link destination information acquisition program 7-4.

Here, the preview creating program 7-1
Receives a duplicate of the email from the relay unit 2-2, extracts the email text in the duplicate of the email,
One or more e-mail constituent words and link information included in the e-mail text are acquired, an e-mail constituent word list is created from the e-mail constituent words, and the e-mail constituent word list is used as the coordinate determination unit 2-. 5
To the similar word determining unit 2-6, the coordinates of the email constituent word list are received from the coordinate determining unit 2-5, and the coordinates of the electronic mail constituent word list are transmitted to the similar word determining unit 2-6.
6, the similar word list of the email constituent word list is acquired, the link information is further transmitted to the link destination information acquisition unit 2-8, the link destination information is received from the link destination information acquisition unit 2-8, and the link The link destination information text in the destination information is extracted, the link destination information constituent words included in the link destination information text are acquired, a link destination information constituent word list is created from the link destination information constituent words, and the link is created. The destination information constituent word list is transmitted to the coordinate determining unit 2-5, the coordinates of the link destination information constituent word list are received from the coordinate determining unit 2-5, and the coordinates of the link destination information constituent word list are set to the similar word determining unit 2. -6, acquires the similar word list of the link destination information constituent word list from the similar word determination unit 2-6, and sends the electronic mail text and the similar word list of the electronic mail constituent word list and the link. By a similar word list of information and destination information configuration word list, you create an e-mail preview, as a preview creation means for sending the e-mail preview to the relay unit 2-2, a program causing a computer to function.

Further, the coordinate determining program 7-2 receives the electronic mail constituent word list and the link destination information constituent word list from the preview creating section 2-4, and creates the electronic mail constituent word list and the link destination information constituent word list. One or more electronic mail constituent words and one coordinate in the multi-dimensional space included in the linked information constituent words included in is acquired by referring to the word concept database 2-7, and the acquired electronic mail is acquired. Based on the coordinates of the constituent words and the link destination information constituent words, the coordinates of the email constituent word list and the coordinates of the link destination information constituent word list are respectively determined, and the determined coordinates and links of the email constituent word list. As coordinate determining means for transmitting the coordinates of the destination information constituent word list to the preview creating unit 2-4, Is a program to function.

Further, the similar word determination program 7-3 receives the coordinates of the electronic mail constituent word list and the coordinates of the link destination information constituent word list from the preview creating section 2-4, and the coordinates of the electronic mail constituent word list and Refer to the word concept database 2-7 for one or more words having coordinates near the coordinates of the linked information constituent word list, and refer to the word concept database 2-7 for a similar word list of the electronic mail constituent word list and the linked information constituent word list. Of the electronic mail constituent word list and the similar word list of the link destination information constituent word list, and transmits the same word list of the linked information constituent word list to the preview creating unit 2-4. It is a program to let.

Further, the link destination information acquisition program 7-4
Receives link information from the relay unit 2-2, acquires link destination information via the communication network 4 based on the link information, and transmits the acquired link destination information to the preview creation unit 2-4. It is a program that causes a computer to function as a means.

Here, the preview creating program 7-
1, the coordinate determination program 7-2, the similar word determination program 7-3, and the link destination information acquisition program 7-4 have been described as an example where the hard disk is provided.
Software package, eg CD-ROM, RO
It can be provided in the form of an information storage medium such as M, RAM, a flexible disk, and a memory card. In this case, the programs stored in the medium are installed in a storage device such as a hard disk incorporated in the hardware system to execute these programs, and the preview creating means 2-4 and the coordinate determining means 2 are executed. -5, the similar word determining means 2-6, and the link destination information acquiring means 2-8 can be realized. Further, the preview creating program 7-1, the coordinate determining program 7-2, the similar word determining program 7-3, and the link destination information acquiring means 2-
8 may be provided by communication, for example by a server.

Next, the operation of the electronic mail relay device will be described with reference to FIGS. 4, 6, 9, 10 and 14 to 22. Email address, eg yamad
a @ aaa. from the terminal device 1 on the mail sender side having the email address co.jp, the electronic mail 11 is sent via the communication network 4 to an electronic mail address, for example, tanaka @ bbb. co. jp
A case will be described as an example where the mail is transmitted to the terminal device 3 on the mail receiving side. For example, as shown in FIG. 14, the transmitted e-mail 11 includes “From: y” as the sender.
amada @ aaa. co. jp ", as recipient" T "
o: tanaka @ bbb. co. jp ”, the title is“ Title: contact information, and the body is “this e-ma.
If you have a look at il, click here (htt
p: // www. business. com / mess
age. Please see html). It is described as ".

This electronic mail 11 includes www. bus
iness. computer network called com
HTTP (Hyper Text)
Message that can be obtained by the Transfer Protocol). The link destination information indicating that the HTML format text file html exists is described. The electronic mail input from the mail transmitting side terminal device 1 to the electronic mail relay device 2 via the communication network 4 is received by the transmitting / receiving unit 2-1. The electronic mail received by the transmission / reception unit 2-1 is transmitted to the relay unit 2-2.

The processing in the relay section 2-2 is the same as that in the first embodiment and will be described with reference to FIG. Relay unit 2-
2 receives the e-mail from the transmission / reception unit 2-1 (S
41), and stores the e-mail in the e-mail buffer 2-3 (S42). In addition, the e-mail buffer 2-
A duplicate of the email is created by referring to the email stored in S3 (S43), and the duplicate of the email is sent to the preview creating unit 2-4 (S44).

The process of creating the electronic mail constituent word list and the link information in the preview creating unit 2-4 will be described with reference to FIG. 15. The preview creating unit 2-4 receives the duplicate of the electronic mail and then receives the electronic mail. As the text, the text portion (“If you see this email 1, please see this immediately.”) Is selected and extracted (S151). Also, as link information, http: /
/ Www. business. com / messag
e. html is selected (S152).

As in the first embodiment, a morphological analysis program Chasen is used as a method for acquiring a word list.
(Matsumoto et al .: Japanese morphological analysis system "ChaSen" vers
version 2.2.1 User's Manual (2000)), the morpheme analysis program is built in the preview creation section 2-4, and the e-mail constituent words are acquired by activating the program. . As a result, {See this email,
Tara, ba ..., urgently, please see here. }
The text is divided into words, and the constituent words of the email are acquired (S153). As a method of acquiring the word list, any method may be used as long as it is a program that extracts words from the text, in addition to the morphological analysis program described above.

In this way, an e-mail composing word list is created as a word list for each of the e-mail composing words thus acquired (S154), and the e-mail composing word list is transmitted to the coordinate determining section 2-5. Is done (S15
5). Also, link information http: // www. bus
iness. com / message. html is transmitted to the link destination information acquisition unit 2-8 (S156).

The calculation process of the coordinates of the electronic mail constituent word list in the coordinate determining unit 2-5 is the same as that in the first embodiment, and will be described with reference to FIGS. 6 and 9. When the coordinate determination unit 2-5 receives the email constituent word list (S
61), referring to the word concept database 2-7, the coordinates of the electronic mail constituent words are determined (S62). Similar to the first embodiment, the coordinate determination unit 2-5 and the similar word determination unit 2-6.
As a word concept database 2-7 referred to by, a database in which coordinates of a two-dimensional space are given to each electronic mail constituent word is used.

The coordinate determining section 2-5 refers to the word concept database 2-7 for the electronic mail constituent words of the received electronic mail constituent word list, confirms whether or not they are stored (S91), and stores them. If so, the coordinates corresponding to the electronic mail constituent word are acquired (S9).
2). If it is not stored, the procedure for acquiring the coordinates of another e-mail word is repeated (S93). In the second embodiment, the above-mentioned e-mail constituent words {this, emai1, see, become, become, add, add,
For example, please see here, urgently. }, There is no word stored in the word concept database 2-7 (S63). In such a case, the coordinates of the electronic mail constituent word are the origin (0, 0) (S64). The coordinates are transmitted to the preview creating section 2-4 (S66).

The preview creating section 2-4 receives from the coordinate determining section 2-5 the coordinates (0, 0) of the electronic mail constituent word list corresponding to the electronic mail constituent word list extracted from the electronic mail text, and this electronic mail is received. The coordinates of the constituent word list are transmitted to the similar word determining unit 2-6.

The similar word list selection process is performed in the first embodiment.
Is similar to the above, and will be described with reference to FIG. The similar word determining unit 2-6 receives the coordinates (0, 0) of the email constituent word list from the preview creating unit 2-4 (S10).
1), the coordinates of all the words in the word concept database 2-7 are taken out one by one, and the degree of similarity with the coordinates (0,0) is calculated (S102, S103). As a method of calculating the degree of similarity, for example, the reciprocal of the square root of the sum of squares of the difference between the elements in each dimension of the two coordinates is used, and the degree of similarity when the two coordinates match is infinite. However, if one of the coordinates is the origin, the similarity is 0. Then, if the similarity is 0, it is determined that there is no similar word, and the fact that there is no similar word is transmitted to the preview creating unit 2-4 (S105).

The link destination information acquisition processing in the link destination information acquisition unit 2-8 will be described with reference to FIG. Upon receiving the link information from the preview creating unit 2-4 (S161), the link destination information acquiring unit 2-8 acquires the link destination information in which the location is described by the link information via the communication network 4 ( S162). For example, when the link destination information is the file in the HTML format shown in FIG. 18, the link destination information acquisition unit 2-8 uses the communication network 4 through the w
ww. business. Access the computer with the host name com.
sage. Acquire an HTML format file called html. The link destination information acquisition unit 2-8 sends this file to the preview creation unit 2-4 as link destination information (S163).

The process of creating a link destination information constituent word in the preview creating unit will be described with reference to FIG. Upon receiving the link destination information from the link destination information acquisition unit 2-8 (S171), the preview creation unit 2-4 extracts the link destination information text from the link destination information (S17).
2). As a method for extracting text, for example, HTM
Text other than L format tags. By doing so, the extracted text has the same format as the electronic mail text shown in the first embodiment.

As in the first embodiment, a morphological analysis program Chasen is used as a method for acquiring a word list.
(Matsumoto et al .: Japanese morphological analysis system "ChaSen" vers
version 2.2.1 Instruction Manual (2000)), the morphological analysis program is built in the preview creation section 2-4, and the link destination information constituent word is acquired by activating the program. . As a result, {men and women's, encounters, places, new, love, budding, encounters, opportunities. ,reply,
Please give me,. } And the text are divided into words, and link destination information constituent words are acquired (S173).

As the method of acquiring the word list, any method may be used as long as it is a program for extracting words from the text, in addition to the above morphological analysis program. In this way, a link destination information constituent word list is created as a word list for each of the acquired link destination information constituent words (S174), and the link destination information constituent word list is transmitted to the coordinate determination unit 2-5. Is done (S17
5).

The process of calculating the coordinates of the linked information constituent word list in the coordinate determination unit 2-5 will be described with reference to FIGS. 19 and 20.
This will be described with reference to. When the coordinate determination unit 2-5 receives the link destination information constituent word list (S191), it refers to the word concept database 2-7 and determines the coordinates of the link destination information constituent word list (S192). Embodiment 1
Similarly, the word concept database 2-7 referred to by the coordinate determining unit 2-5 and the similar word determining unit 2-6 is a database in which the coordinates of the two-dimensional space are given to the constituent words. Use the source.

FIG. 20 is a coordinate acquisition routine (S192) in the calculation process of the coordinates of the link destination information constituent word list.
It is a flowchart showing. The coordinate determination unit 2-5 refers to the word concept database 2-7 for the link destination information constituent words of the received link destination information constituent word list,
It is confirmed whether or not it is stored (S201), and if it is stored, the coordinates corresponding to the link destination information constituent word are acquired (S202). If not stored, the procedure for acquiring the coordinates of another link destination information word is repeated (S203). In the second embodiment, the linked information constituent words {gender, of, encounter, of, place,
New, love, budding, encounter, chance. ,Please reply,. }, The words stored in the word concept database 2-7 are {love,
Budding, chance, reply, encounter}, so acquire the coordinates of these. The coordinates for these words (0.
9, 0.9): Love, (0.8, 0.8): Sprouts,
(0.2,0.3): Chance, (0.2,0.5):
Reply, (0.5, 0.5): The encounter is acquired from the word concept database 2-7 (S192).

Next, the coordinates of the link destination information constituent word list are determined based on the acquired coordinates of the link destination information constituent words (S193, S194, S195). For example, the coordinates of the linked information constituent word list are averaged to obtain the coordinates of the linked information constituent word list. Here, as a method of averaging the coordinates of the link destination information constituent word list, a method of averaging the element values for each dimension of the coordinates of the two-dimensional space is used. In this case, the average of the elements in the first dimension is (0.9+
0.8 + 0.2 + 0.2 + 0.5) /5=0.52, the average of the elements of the second dimension is (0.9 + 0.8 + 0.3 + 0.
Since 5 + 0.5) /5=0.6, the coordinates of the linked information constituent word list are (0.52,0.6). The coordinates are transmitted to the preview creating section 2-4 (S19).
6).

When all the link destination information constituent words are not stored in the word concept database 2-7, or when the coordinates of all the link destination information constituent words are the coordinates of the origin, The coordinates of the linked information constituent word list are set to the origin (0, 0) (S194). The coordinates are transmitted to the preview creating section 2-4 (S196).

The preview creating section 2-4 coordinates (0.52, 0.52) of the link destination information constituent word list corresponding to the link destination information constituent word list extracted from the link destination information text.
0.6) is received from the coordinate determining unit 2-5, and the coordinates of the linked information constituent word list are transmitted to the similar word determining unit 2-6.

The process of selecting a similar word in the link destination information constituent word list in the similar word determining unit 2-6 will be described with reference to FIG. The similar word determining unit 2-6 receives the coordinates (0.
52, 0.6) is received (S211), the coordinates of all the words in the word concept database 2-7 are extracted one by one, and the similarity with the coordinates (0.52, 0.6) Is calculated (S212, S213). As a method of calculating the similarity,
As in the first embodiment, for example, the reciprocal of the square root of the sum of squares of the differences between the elements in the respective dimensions of the two coordinates is set to 2
If two coordinates match, the similarity is infinity. However, if one of the coordinates is the origin, the similarity is 0. Then, when the similarity is 0, it is determined that there is no similar word. Based on the result of the similarity, a similar word to be transmitted is selected (S214), and the similar word list is transmitted to the preview creating unit 2-4 (S215).

As a method of selecting the similar word list, any method may be used as long as it preferentially selects words having a high degree of similarity. Here, two words having a high degree of similarity, {encounter, sprout}, are transmitted to the preview creating unit 2-4 as a similar word list of the link destination information constituent word list (S215).

Upon receipt of the similar word list of the link destination information constituent word list, the preview creating section 2-4 receives the similar word list of the link destination information constituent word list, the duplicate of the electronic mail, the link information, the link destination information text, Furthermore, an e-mail preview is created using the information that there is no similar word corresponding to the link destination information. For example, as shown in FIG. 22, the text after From in the link destination information header, the text after Tit1e, the absence of similar words in the link destination information, the link information, the similar word list in the link destination information constituent word list, Based on this, the standard text is further added to create the electronic mail preview 13.

In the electronic mail preview shown in FIG. 22,
As standard text, "E-mail with the following contents arrived to you, do you want to receive it?", "Sender:", "Content:", "Link:", "Linked content:" , In the part where "Sender:" is written,
The text “from” after From in the email header
ada @ aaa. co. jp ”is described and“ Content: ”
Is indicated in the portion where "is not present" in the email constituent word list, and "link:" is indicated in the link information "http: // www.
w. business. com / message. ht
"ml" is described, and a similar word list of the linked information constituent word list "encounter and sprout" is described in the "link content:" part.

The preview creating section 2-4 sends this electronic mail preview to the relay section 2-2. Relay unit 2-2
When receiving the electronic mail preview, the electronic mail preview transmits the electronic mail preview to the mail receiving side terminal 3 via the transmitting / receiving unit 2-1. As a transmission method, a method of transmitting text in an electronic mail format, a method of transmitting and receiving text data via different computer networks, etc.
A method capable of transmitting text data from the electronic mail relay device 2 to the mail receiving terminal 3 is used.

The recipient browses the electronic mail preview 13 by the terminal device 3 on the mail receiving side, determines whether to receive or reject the electronic mail 11 corresponding to the electronic mail preview 13, and returns the answer. It is transmitted to the electronic mail relay device 2 via the communication network 4. The reply can be sent by sending a text in an e-mail format, sending / receiving text data via a different computer network, or the like, by sending text data to the terminal device 3 on the mail receiving side.
From the e-mail relay device 2 is used.

The reply from the recipient is received by the transmission / reception unit 2-1 of the electronic mail relay device 2. The transmitter / receiver 2-1
When the reply from the recipient is received, the reply is sent to the relay unit 2-
Send to 2. When the reply of the receiver is reception, the relay unit 2-2 takes out the electronic mail 11 corresponding to the electronic mail preview 13 stored in the electronic mail buffer 2-3, and through the communication network 4. And sends it to the mail receiving side terminal device 3. If the reply from the recipient is rejection, the email 1 corresponding to the email preview 13 stored in the email buffer 2-3 is sent.
Delete 1 or take out the e-mail and
To the terminal device 1 on the mail transmitting side via.

Although the invention made by the present inventor has been specifically described based on the embodiments, the present invention is not limited to the above embodiments, and various modifications can be made without departing from the scope of the invention. Needless to say.
For example, in an e-mail service provided by a mobile phone company or an internet provider to users and subscribers, if the user is provided with an additional service for removing junk mail sent via the internet, it is owned by the company. It is suitable to apply the present invention to a relay portion that connects the user network network and the Internet. As a result, all unsolicited e-mails from the unspecified majority via the Internet can be effectively removed by the user's judgment based on the contents.

[0109]

According to the electronic mail relay device of the present invention,
In an e-mail relay service that determines whether to receive an e-mail based on an e-mail preview, when creating an e-mail preview using only text such as the subject or sender that can be fixedly extracted from the e-mail. ,
Even if an email is a junk email created by the sender for an unspecified number of people and is mistaken as an important email when the recipient sees the email preview, Since it is possible to create an email preview including words that briefly describe the content, it is possible to deal with a wide range of unwanted emails.

Also, based on the concept base, by creating an email preview with one or more words expressing the subject indicated by the text in the email, important sentences or paragraphs can be identified based on the matching rules. Since a simple expression can be made as compared with a case where the emails are extracted and used as the email preview as they are, the recipient who views the email preview can easily determine the content of the email.

Although the e-mail itself does not describe the contents that can be judged as unsolicited e-mail, link information of different information is described in the e-mail, and the junk e-mail cannot be displayed until the recipient browses the linked information. Even for emails that are determined to have been, it is possible to express the content of the link destination information with simple words and to create an electronic preview containing it, so it is not possible to specify indirectly in the email. Even if the email contains a business description for many, the recipient can determine that it is spam. Also, not only the text information in the email or the text of the link destination information obtained from the link information described in the text, but also the text information, the email preview is considered in consideration of the content of the text. Can be created.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a schematic configuration of an electronic mail relay device according to a first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram for explaining the hardware configuration of the electronic mail relay device according to the first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing an example of a transmitted electronic mail.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart for explaining a relay process of the electronic mail relay device according to the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart for explaining a process of creating an electronic mail constituent word list of the electronic mail relay device according to the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart for explaining a process of calculating the coordinates of the email constituent word list of the email relay device according to the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 7 is an explanatory diagram of a word concept database in the electronic mail relay device according to the first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 8 is a diagram for explaining coordinates of a word registered in a word concept database in a multidimensional space.

FIG. 9 is a flow chart of a routine for acquiring the coordinates of the email constituent words in the process of calculating the coordinates of the email constituent word list.

FIG. 10 is a flowchart for explaining a similar word selection process of the electronic mail constituent word list according to the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 11 is a diagram showing an example of an electronic mail preview.

FIG. 12 is a block diagram showing a schematic configuration of an electronic mail relay device according to a second embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 13 is a diagram for explaining a hardware configuration of an electronic mail relay device according to the second embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 14 is a diagram showing an example of a transmitted electronic mail.

FIG. 15 is a flowchart for explaining a process of creating an electronic mail constituent word list and link information in the electronic mail relay device according to the second embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 16 is a flowchart for explaining a process of acquiring link destination information in the electronic mail relay device according to the second embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 17 is a flow chart for explaining a process of creating a link destination information constituent word list of the electronic mail relay device according to the second embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 18 is a diagram showing an example of link destination information.

FIG. 19 is a flowchart for explaining a calculation process of coordinates of a link destination information constituent word list according to the second embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 20 is a flowchart of a routine for acquiring the coordinates of the link destination information constituent words in the calculation processing of the coordinates of the link destination information constituent words list.

FIG. 21 is a flow chart for explaining a similar word selection process of the link destination information constituent word list according to the second embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 22 is a diagram showing an example of an email preview.

[Explanation of symbols]

1 ... E-mail sending terminal device, 2 ... E-mail relay device,
2-1 ... Transmitting / receiving unit, 2-2 ... Relay unit, 2-3 ... E-mail buffer, 2-4 ... Preview creating unit, 2-5 ... Coordinate determining unit, 2-6 ... Similar word determining unit, 2-7 ... Word concept database, 2-8 ... Link destination information acquisition section, 3 ... Mail receiving terminal, 4 ... Communication network, 5 ... CPU (central processing unit), 6 ... Memory, 7 ... Hard disk, 7-1 ... Preview Creation program, 7-2 ... Coordinate determination program,
7-3 ... Similar word determination program, 7-4 ... Link destination information acquisition program, 8 ... Communication IF, 9, 14 ... E-mail, 10, 13 ... E-mail preview, 12 ... Link destination information.

Claims (17)

[Claims] 1. Receiving means for receiving an electronic mail; word information extracting means for extracting text data from the electronic mail; dividing the text data into words; and extracting the divided word information; A word concept database in which coordinates in a space associated with the word are stored in advance, a coordinate determining unit that determines the coordinates corresponding to the extracted word information by referring to the word concept database, and the word concept A similar word determining unit that refers to a database and determines a similar word located near the coordinates corresponding to the determined word information; a preview creating unit that creates an email preview using the similar word; An electronic mail relay device comprising: a sending unit that sends a mail preview to a user terminal. 2. The electronic mail relay device according to claim 1, wherein the coordinate determination means refers to the word concept database, acquires coordinates corresponding to the determined word information, respectively, and acquires a plurality of acquired coordinates. An e-mail relay device, characterized in that one coordinate is determined based on the coordinates. 3. A receiving step of receiving an electronic mail, a word information extracting step of extracting text data from the electronic mail, dividing the text data into words, and extracting the divided word information; Refer to the word concept database that stores in advance the coordinates in the space associated with that word,
A coordinate determining step of determining coordinates corresponding to the extracted word information, and a similar word determining step of referring to the word concept database and determining a similar word located near the coordinates corresponding to the determined word information. An electronic mail relay method comprising: a preview creating step of creating an electronic mail preview using the similar words; and a sending step of sending the electronic mail preview to a user terminal. 4. The electronic mail relay method according to claim 3, wherein the coordinate determining step refers to the word concept database, acquires coordinates corresponding to the extracted word information, respectively, and acquires a plurality of acquired coordinates. An e-mail relay method, characterized in that one coordinate is determined based on the coordinates. 5. Receiving means for receiving an electronic mail; word information extracting means for extracting text data from the electronic mail; dividing the text data into words; and extracting the divided word information; Refer to the word concept database that stores in advance the coordinates in the space associated with that word,
Coordinate determining means for determining coordinates corresponding to the extracted word information, and similar word determining means for referring to the word concept database and determining similar words located in the vicinity of the coordinates corresponding to the determined word information. An electronic mail relay program that causes a computer to function as a preview creating unit that creates an electronic mail preview using the similar words, and a sending unit that sends the electronic mail preview to a user terminal. 6. The electronic mail relay program according to claim 5, wherein the coordinate determination means refers to the word concept database, acquires coordinates corresponding to the extracted word information, respectively, and acquires a plurality of acquired coordinates. An e-mail relay program, which determines one coordinate based on the coordinate. 7. Receiving means for receiving an electronic mail, link information extracting means for extracting link information from the electronic mail, and acquisition of link destination information for extracting link destination information from the content corresponding to the extracted link information. Means, extracting text data from the electronic mail, dividing the text data of the electronic mail into words, extracting word information of the divided electronic mail, and extracting text data from the link destination information. Then, the text data of the link destination information is divided into words, and word information extraction means for extracting the word information of the divided link destination information, and the word and the coordinates in the space associated with the word. A word concept database stored in advance and the word information of the e-mail extracted by referring to the word concept database Coordinate determining means for determining the coordinates corresponding to the coordinates and the coordinates corresponding to the word information of the link destination information, and referring to the word concept database, the position near the coordinates corresponding to the determined word information of the email A similar word determining unit that determines a similar word of the link destination information located near coordinates corresponding to the similar word of the email and the word information of the link destination information, and the similar word of the email and the link destination An electronic mail relay apparatus comprising: a preview creating unit that creates an electronic mail preview using similar words of information; and a sending unit that sends the electronic mail preview to a user terminal. 8. The electronic mail relay device according to claim 7, wherein the coordinate determination means refers to the word concept database, acquires coordinates corresponding to the extracted word information of the electronic mail, and acquires the acquired coordinates. One coordinate of the word information of the e-mail is determined based on the plurality of coordinates obtained,
An electronic mail relay device, characterized in that the coordinates corresponding to the word information of the link destination information are respectively acquired, and one coordinate of the word information of the link information is determined based on the acquired plural coordinates. 9. A receiving step of receiving an electronic mail, a link information extracting step of extracting link information from the electronic mail, and a link destination information extracting of link destination information from content corresponding to the extracted link information. A step of extracting text data from the e-mail, dividing the text data of the e-mail into words, extracting word information of the divided e-mail, and extracting text data from the link destination information Then, the text data of the link destination information is divided into words, and the word information extraction step of extracting the divided word information of the link destination information, and the coordinates in the space associated with the word With reference to a previously stored word concept database,
A coordinate determining step of determining the coordinates corresponding to the extracted word information of the email and the coordinates corresponding to the word information of the link destination information, respectively, referring to the word concept database, the determined word of the email A similar word determining step of determining a similar word of the electronic mail located near the coordinates corresponding to the information and a similar word of the link destination information located near the coordinates corresponding to the word information of the link destination information; An electronic device including: a preview creating step of creating an electronic mail preview using a similar word of an electronic mail and a similar word of the link destination information; and a transmitting step of transmitting the electronic mail preview to a user terminal. Mail relay method. 10. The electronic mail relay method according to claim 9, wherein the coordinate determining step refers to the word concept database, acquires coordinates corresponding to the extracted word information of the electronic mail, and acquires the acquired coordinates. One coordinate of the word information of the e-mail is determined based on the plurality of coordinates obtained,
An electronic mail relay method, comprising: acquiring the coordinates corresponding to the word information of the link destination information, and determining one coordinate of the word information of the link information based on the acquired plurality of coordinates. 11. A receiving means for receiving an electronic mail, a link information extracting means for extracting link information from the electronic mail, and a link destination information extracting for extracting link destination information from the content corresponding to the extracted link information. Means, extracting text data from the electronic mail, dividing the text data of the electronic mail into words, extracting word information of the divided electronic mail, and extracting text data from the link destination information. Then, the text data of the link destination information is divided into words, and word information extraction means for extracting the word information of the divided link destination information, and the word and the coordinates in the space associated with the word. With reference to a previously stored word concept database,
Coordinate determining means for respectively determining the coordinates corresponding to the extracted word information of the email and the coordinates corresponding to the word information of the link destination information, and referring to the word concept database, the determined word of the email A similar word determining means for determining a similar word of the electronic mail located near the coordinates corresponding to the information and a similar word of the link destination information located near the coordinates corresponding to the word information of the link destination information; A computer that functions as a preview creating unit that creates an electronic mail preview using a similar word of an electronic mail and a similar word of the link destination information; and a transmitting unit that transmits the electronic mail preview to a user terminal. E-mail relay program to do. 12. The electronic mail relay program according to claim 11, wherein the coordinate determination means refers to the word concept database, acquires coordinates corresponding to the extracted word information of the electronic mail, and acquires the acquired coordinates. One coordinate of the word information of the e-mail is determined based on the plurality of coordinates obtained,
An electronic mail relay program, characterized in that the coordinates corresponding to the word information of the link destination information are respectively acquired, and one coordinate of the word information of the link destination information is determined based on the acquired plurality of coordinates. 13. The electronic mail relay device according to claim 1, 2, 7, or 8, wherein the word concept database has adjacent coordinates for words that are conceptually related. An electronic mail relay device characterized by being assigned. 14. The electronic mail relaying method according to claim 3, wherein the word concept database is a coordinate system that is close to a conceptually related word. An e-mail relay method characterized by being assigned. 15. The electronic mail relay device according to claim 1, claim 2, claim 7, or claim 8, wherein the similar word determining unit is configured to coordinate the word information and the word concept. An electronic mail relaying device, characterized in that a degree of similarity with a coordinate of a word stored in a database is calculated, and a word having a predetermined degree of similarity is regarded as a similar word. 16. The e-mail relay method according to claim 3, wherein the similar word determining step includes the coordinates of the word information and the word concept. An electronic mail relay method characterized in that a degree of similarity with a coordinate of a word stored in a database is calculated, and a word having a predetermined degree of similarity is regarded as a similar word. 17. A storage medium storing the program according to any one of claims 5, 6, 11, and 12.