A new study by Edelman and The Ponemon Institute surveying 6,400 executives finds that 60% believe their companies do not consider consumer privacy a priority, and more than half do not believe a privacy breach would damage their brands. This is in start contrast to the consumer response, where 80% would shift their accounts from banks that accessed personal information without permission and 70% would dump healthcare providers that did the same. 

Your busy subscribers are pulled in even more directions during the holidays, so your calls to action have to be especially simple, actionable and short.  Read the full story on the iContact blog. 

Some Microsoft Cloud email customers were reporting intermittent access to email. Similar outages were reported just five days ago. Microsoft acknowledged the outage on Twitter but has provided no details on what may have caused it or how many users have been affected. 

The Veterans Administration has announced a $36 million deal that will move its 600,000 email accounts to Microsoft Office 365, following suit of the EPA, FAA, Agricultural Department and other government agencies that have moved to Microsoft's cloud email, calendar, web conferencing and instant messaging platform. 

Yahoo! may be set to relaunch Yahoo! Mail in order to keep step with Gmail's recent relaunch. According to sources close to the company, CEO Marissa Mayer believes Yahoo! Mail is a missed opportunity. The relaunch is expected in early December. It is not clear if it will be limited to design or if new functionality will be rolled out as well. 

Return Path announced today the launch of Outbound Abuse Manager and Global Trap Exchange, two new tools to protect and stop fraud originating from within customers' networks. The tools allow email administrators to quickly detect fake account and identify real ones that have been compromised.

Snail Mail My Email is a worldwide collaborative art project that turns emails into hand-written works of art before mailing them off to their intended recipients. Its purpose is to remind people of the power of personal connections in a digital world. Last year the initiative sent over 10,000 letters to 70 countries, many of which were featured in a book commemorating the event. This year's Snail Mail My Email runs from November 12 - 18.

With almost 15% of holiday shopping expected to be transacted online, and many offline retaielrs relying on email as well to drive store traffic, inbox activity is expected to reach new heights during the holiday season. Even if your brand isn't focused on the holidays, your email program nevertheless has to have a holiday strategy - if only to avoid the rush that could impact your own messages' results.  Read the full article on the Real Magnet blog. 

According to a new study from McAffee, 88% of of smartphone or tablet users will swap some of their personal info in exchange for offers or discounts, with email address on the table for 76% of them. Mobile users are less forthcoming with their name (62%), age (56%) and address or phone number (36%).

A study commissioned by ExactTarget and compiled by Forrester Research has surveyed 211 professionals on their attitudes about and readiness for cross-channel marketing. While over half of the participants believe that cross-channel marketing is important and 75% believe that they were well-prepared, the study revealed a slightly different story. Based on responses within the survey, only 5% were considered very well-prepared, 34% were adequately prepared, 37% somewhat prepared, and 24% less than somewhat prepared.