Plaintiffs accusing Google of scanning their email without permission have significant challenges in their class action lawsuit, a federal judge said on Thursday. Nine plaintiffs have brought charges against Google claiming that the company violated federal anti-wiretapping laws by scanning their emails to serve ads. Some of the plaintiffs were not Gmail users and U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh has said that plaintiff attorneys faced a "huge hurdle" to demonstrate that the non-Gmail users were entitled to class action status.

A new startup called Rebump has launched a service that automatically reminds you to respond to emails that you have not yet responded to. The app will re-email you continually until you respond to the original message. The company bases its theory on the fact that "the more you follow-up, the more of a chance you have for a 100% response rate."

There is a spam email circulating in Hawaii which purports to be from a bailiff of the Hawaii State Judiciary. The email tells the recipient to vacate the premises and to click on a link for more information. The link contains malware and causes the computer to shut down. The Hawaii State Judiciary has advised recipients not to open these emails, as the courts do not send summons via email.

Michigan Representative Kevin Cotter has introduced legislation into the Michigan House which would make it a statewide policy to shut down the social media and email accounts of individuals who die or become incapacitated. The bill would see these digital accounts as personal assets. "As social media and email accounts continue to grow in use and popularity it is prudent that we create a process of how to deal with these accounts in the unfortunate event of a person's passing," state Cotter stated in a press release.

San Diego's new District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis has been accused of using email to intimidate her co-workers during her campaign for office. Dumanis won re-election on Tuesday, but Robert Hickey, president of the deputy DA union, has reported a number of complaints over the emails that she sent, as well as emails sent from deputy district attorneys to co-workers encouraging them to support Dumanis.

Successful people write short emails, according to a new book Send: Why People Email So Badly and How to Do It Better by Will Schwalbe and David Shipley. The book includes the email habits of successful CEOs including Steve Jobs and Jeff Bezos. It turns out that people at the top, get to the point with email so as not to waste time. There is even a movement towards emails that are not longer than five sentences.

Indiana judge Gregory Donat used his taxpayer-owned office computer and his work email account to send out an email campaign message promoting his re-election bid this week. The Republican judge apologized for the move saying he didn't thin about it, and would not do it again. He explained the mistake to JS Online, "It wasn't anything malicious or planned ahead of time, and Judge Morrissey brought it to my attention.

Job seeker Diana Mekota has shared a mean email rejection she got from Kelly Blazek, the head of a well-known communications job bank in Ohio, and the email has gone viral. Mekota sent Blazek a request to connect on LinkedIn and Blazek responded with a rejection via email titled 'Poor Judgment on your Job-seeking Strategy.' "Your invite to connect is inappropriate, beneficial only to you, and tacky," wrote Blazek in the email. "Wow, I cannot wait to let every 26-year-old job-seeker mine my top-tier marketing connections to help them land a job. I love the sense of entitlement in your …

Email views are shifting from desktops to mobile phones, according to new research from marketing consultant Jordie Van Rijn. He analyzed more than 100 data points from January to December 2013, and determined that mobile email opens increased from 42 to 51 percent while, desktop views dropped from 33 to 29 percent. Van Rijn concluded that mobile email will account for 15 to 70 percent of email opens, depending on the target audience, product and type of email.

British Airways is warning about a spam email going around pretending to be from the airline. The email comes from the email address BC.CustSrvcs@email.ba.com and claims to be a confirmation for an upcoming flight. The email contains links to confirm the flight which are being used to collect personal information about consumers. The airline has received a number of complaints about the phishing message.