If you think back to our earlier discussions in this chapter related to various technologies that can be used to automate the data entry process, all the technologies relied on a standardized format for the data (e.g., a bar code or a printed response such as amount paid on the sales receipt). This is almost the antithesis of e-mail. E-mail tends to be a very free-form mode of expression and, for the most part, a fairly casual and informal mode of communication. This unstructured nature of the communication mode makes data capturing more difficult and generally requires human translation and entry of the data. This increase the likelihood of error and requires more stringent data control procedures to be in place. The e-mail essentially becomes a source document for use in the business event data processing. Generally, e-mail will be used for only low volume solicitations. Organizations using e-mail as a method of conducting e-commerce must also have a mechanism in place to deal with unsolicited, nondocument mail (spam).