The January issue of MIT's Technology Review magazine includes a profile of General Interactive, whose EchoMail product is currently used by Nike, J.C. Penney and other companies to automatically screen and route incoming e-mail. Back in 1997, EchoMail determined that lots of hostile e-mail messages were coming into J.C. Penney and alerted its human supervisor that they demanded immediate attention. Unlike callers receiving those recorded telephone messages of the 1970s, most people receiving a canned response from the White House or J.C. Penney today probably don't realize that their e-mail was read and replied to by a machine. Unlike a recorded message, there's no easy way to tell if an e-mail message is a canned response or has been personally composed and sent to the recipient. Perhaps they'll delay responding to a message for a few hours or pepper their missives with occasional grammar or punctuation errors.
Automated systems work because people tend to send e-mail on similar topics.
Form-letter replies work great if you can pick the appropriate form response to a particular letter. It's a precedent that could eventually tear at the social fabric of the online world. Today, exchanging e-mail is probably most people's favorite Internet activity. We use it to catch up with friends, make dinner plans, exchange ideas. Instead of a pleasing exchange with friends, a blast of junk e-mail is an attack by someone who is trying to take advantage of you.