Texas could be the first state in the U.S. to pass an email privacy regulation that would require law enforcement to get a warrant in order to access a citizen's email. The new bill (HB 2268) would update the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) which only requires federal law enforcement to obtain warrants only when they are accessing recent emails. The bill has been sent to Texas Governor Rick Perry.

Google has redesigned the Gmail inbox to make it easier for users to sort through emails on their desktop computers, as well as on mobile devices. The new version of Gmail automatically groups incoming emails into five different categories -- primary, social, promotions, updates and forums -- in order to give users a quick idea of what is coming into their mailbox. Google explained that the update came from user demand and it is designed to put users back in control of their inboxes.

Email marketers may be tempted to use no-reply email addresses when sending out messages, but Michael Linthorst, CEO of Copernica Marketing Software, argues that they shouldn't. In a piece penned for eConsultancy, he lists a few reasons that this is a bad idea, including that no-reply addresses lead to more spam complaints and that consumers won't add a no-reply address to their address book.

More than half of teens are willing to share their email addresses with social networking sites, according to a recent study by Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project. For the report, Pew interviewed 802 12-18 year olds about their digital habits in phone calls during the summer of 2012, and found that 53% of teens were willing to share their email address with social networks. This is up from 29 percent in 2006.

It might be a little bit annoying to get an email notification every time you have a Facebook notification, however, Lifehacker offers a good reason to do so. It makes the archive searchable. If you turn on Facebook's email notifications, and use it with a Gmail account, you can add a filter that automatically marks these messages as read so that you don't have to sift through all of these messages. In doing so, this stream of information becomes searchable.

Google may be redesigning the mobile interface for Gmail. While the update hasn't been released, Android Police noticed a new version of Gmail being shown off during a talk at the Android I/O conference. The update has a number of new features including a new navigation drawer that lets users switch between "Inbox" and "Priority Inbox;" without first going to the "All Labels" screen.

Almost 60 percent of small businesses are trying to grow their email lists "at all times," according to a new report from Constant Contact, which surveryed more than 700 small businesses and nonprofits. Why are they growing their lists, asked the email services provider for the study. Forty-four percent said that repeat business was the primary reason, while 39 percent said customer relationship building was their main incentive and 12 percent said that engaging customers for referrals was the main reason for list building.

Email is the most effective marketing tactic, according to 55% of the marketing professionals who were interviewed for a recent Listrak study. In addition, according to MarketingSherpa's Email Marketing Benchmark Survey from 2013, 71% of b-to-c email marketers said that growing and retaining subscribers was a goal over the next year in order to help increase ROI.

Yahoo bought Tumblr for $1 billion this week. The company has come a long way in the past few years. Back in 2008, it was just a small startup when Jacob Bijani, an early Tumblr user, sent founder David Carp an email asking about a job listing. He wrote: "I was wondering if you are still looking to fill the position for creative developers." The job was full, but Carp, who had started following Bijani on Tumblr after he made some custom templates for the platform blogs, offered Bijani a job.

Twitter is working on a new kind of media to sell to advertisers called "custom audiences," a personalized ad buy which is based on a consumer's email address. According to reports, advertisers can share their customers' email addresses with Twitter who will match it up to Twitter users, so that these companies can send targeted ads on Twitter based on the purchase behavior associated with an email address.