Google often comes under fire for its privacy practices, but the company also has at least one policy that's surprisingly privacy-friendly. This week, Google revealed that it doesn't disclose email messages to law enforcement authorities unless they obtain search warrants. "Google requires an ECPA search warrant for contents of Gmail and other services based on the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, which prevents unreasonable search and seizure," a spokesperson says in an email to MediaPost. Google will disclose some metadata, like IP addresses, with just a subpoena. Still, the stance against disclosing content is notable because the Electronic Communications Privacy Act doesn't require search warrants for emails older than six months. Instead, when messages have been in storage longer than 180 days, ECPA only requires law enforcement authorities to get a subpoena -- which is easier to obtain than a search warrant. That's because judges can only sign search warrants if the authorities have probable cause to believe that a search will uncover evidence of a crime. But judges can sign subpoenas for any information that's relevant to a pending matter. Whether the government should need a search warrant for emails has been the subject of much controversy recently. In one high-profile case, a judge in New York last year required Twitter to comply with a subpoena for the tweets of an Occupy Wall Street protester who had been charged with disorderly conduct. The judge rejected requests by Twitter and the protester to quash the subpoena, which was issued without any finding of probable cause. Even more famously, former CIA Director David Petraeus resigned last year after law enforcement officials obtained emails that brought to light his affair with Paula Broadwell. In November, a Senate panel cleared a bill that would revise federal law by banning the authorities from obtaining email messages without first convincing a judge to sign a search warrant. That proposal hasn't gone anywhere and its fate is uncertain. In the meantime, Google adopted the search-warrant standard without waiting for new laws. A Google spokesperson declined to elaborate on exactly how the company has avoided legal repercussions. It's possible that Google has gone to court to quash the subpoenas, but the company isn't saying whether or not it has done so. Even though Google's move goes beyond what the ECPA requires, it's worth noting that one federal appeals panel said the constitutional ban on unreasonable searches and seizures trumps ECPA. In that case, the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the police must obtain a search warrant before they can legally access email messages.
According to the Experian Marketing Services market survey addressing email acquisition and engagement tactics, 44% of total opens occur on mobile devices; 52% of marketers have used animated gifs in their email campaigns; marketers are seeing strong survey completion rates, regardless of offer; email is a strong performer as a generator of both website traffic and revenue; email marketers are testing subject lines and creative more than any other factors; 78% of brands use sales associates to collect email addresses. Email marketing continues to be the hub and a driving force in cross-channel integration, says the report, as marketers’ email strategies act as connectors to Website, mobile, social and in-store channels. The study surveyed email marketers across eight verticals about their email-marketing initiatives. Peter DeNunzio, general manager at Experian Marketing Services CheetahMail, says, “... more email marketers (are) testing new engagement strategies to expand their reach into other marketing channels... (as) a spearhead... towards true cross-channel optimization...” The continued efficacy of email marketing makes email address acquisition a prime tactic for high return on investment (ROI). Today’s email marketers are using multiple channels to acquire new subscribers. Key findings show that:
I have been working to encourage more email marketers to integrate email and social for at least five years (and writing about it since 2009). Where are we now in 2013? The results are all over the board. Some email marketers coordinate their email and social media so that each channel helps the other be more engaging and valuable to subscribers and followers and better achieve marketing goals. Others make a token effort by including a few social network icons in their email templates. The rest treat email and social like walled gardens. Why Don't Marketers Think Outside the Channel? Siloed goals and structure can be one reason. The marketing team member responsible for email marketing might share the same boss as the social media manager, but they probably lack common goals, initiatives and success metrics. Or, the marketing team is still defining the strategic goals of its email-marketing or social marketing program and hasn't come to understand or establish the integration points between the two channels. If you struggle under either of this scenarios, perhaps the following five concepts of email and social integration might help you clarify the role each plays in your marketing program and point you in the right direction to come up with a working strategy. 5 Elements of Email-Social Integration1. Sharing email content into social streams. "Share to social" or "share with your network" was the first foray into email-social integration for many marketers, and is the only one of these five elements to go mainstream. A study we did in 2011 of 500 top retailers found more than seven out of 10 included either social-sharing or "Like/Follow" links in their emails. It's a good opening tactic for email-social integration. However, too many marketers just slap icons into their email messages and then cross their fingers. Not surprisingly, most saw share or follow rates fall into the same poor neighborhood as their click-throughs on forward-to-a-friend links. What's missing?