Mobile startup Conduit is merging with Perion Network, owner of Incredimail, in an all-stock transaction. Conduit's Client Connect business and Perion will be merged into one new business unit. The newly combined Perion company will represent more than 260,000 publisher and content partners.

Want to sound like you spy for the government? The owner of the domain NSA.org is selling email addresses for $100 a piece. You can buy a NSA.org email address or a subdomain email address such as @internationalspy.nsa.org. The forty year old domain owner is an IT consultant that bought the domain name back in 1995.

Seventy-one percent of merchants report that email is their most effective channel, according to a new report from Daily Deal Media. According to DDM's 2013 Online Marketing Trends Merchant Survey which includes input from more than 13,000 merchants based in the U.S., 67 percent reported having an annual marketing budget of less than $5,000. Six percent of merchants said that daily deals are an effective marketing tool, while 19 percent said that social reviews hurt their business.

Half of 18-24 year olds think that Gmail's new tabs makes it easier to manage their email, according to new research from marketing services company Strongview. Across all age groups, only 33% of respondents like the new format. The report also found that the people most likely to check the promotion tab are these young folks, with 12.5% of them checking it more than three times a day. Across all age groups 46.4% of Gmail users check the promotion tab less than once a week and 4.4% never check it.

Marriott International has resigned a multiyear agreement with Epsilon, an Alliance Data company. Under the terms of the agreement, Epsilon will continue to provide email marketing support for Marriott International, Marriott Rewards, and The Ritz-Carlton. Epsilon will continue to power Marriott Rewards' email program which includes newsletters, monthly statements, account information and promotions. The company will also provide trigger-based transactional messages including purchase confirmation, pre-arrival messages and post-stay receipts. The two firms have been working together since 2008.

Gordon Mangione, a former Microsoft executive, has introduced a new email management iPhone app called Tipbit. The app aims brings together email with calendars, shared documents and contacts, as well as social networking accounts, to function as a kind of communications command center. "No one can find anything any longer and no one can respond efficiently," Mangione told Mashable. The company was founded to solve this issue.

Despite the fact that they should know better, about a third of consumers are clicking on emails that appear to be spam, according to a new report from email security firm TNS Global for Halon. For the report, the company surveyed 1,000 users, and about 10 percent of the participants said that they had already infected their computer by opening a spam email attachment.

About half of marketing emails are opened on mobile devices and the other half are opened on computers, according to a new report from Yesmail. The study, which looked at more than 5 billion marketing emails sent by Yesmail clients in Q2 2013, found that 49% of emails were opened on mobile devices and 51% were opened on computers. According to the report, desktop emails garnered a 23% open rate, while mobile emails only had an 11% open rate. The report also revealed that 61% of consumers read at least some of their emails on a mobile device.

Government officials may continue to use secret government email accounts to conduct official business so long as they archive the messages and share them when a Freedom of Information Act request is administered. The National Archives and Records Administration announced these new rules after the Associated Press revealed that some Obama administration political appointees used secret government email accounts that were not publicly disclosed.

Lavabit, the encrypted email service reportedly used by Edward Snowden that closed down after receiving government pressure, will go to court next month. Lavabit founder Ladar Levison raised more than $100,000 help pay for attorneys and appeal a surveillance order, that required him to shut down the company. The case is currently under seal, but Levison's opening brief is set for October 3rd.