In an opinion piece about the importance of using responsive design in email, Mark Ash, Media Director at Teradata eCircle, revealed that 92% of the emails sent by the top 50 retailers in the UK are optimized for mobile optimized. However, these retailers aren't taking full advantage of their options, as only 43% of them have introduced a mobile website.

Movable Ink, an email services company that lets senders , make real-time updates to emails that have already been sent, has raised $11 million in venture capital in a Series B funding round led by Intel Capital. The company, whose clients include Starbucks, American Eagle Outfitters and Barclays, has raised $12.3 million to date.

The American Civil Liberties Union have published documents on Wednesday that reveal that the FBI and some U.S. Attorney's offices have justified the practice of reading citizens' private emails without a warrant. To assert this power, the government is relying on the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986, which allows the government to read emails without a warrant. The law is currently being revised.

Florida-based retailer Palm Beach Jewelry has found that buying email lists is a great way to find new customers. The retailer has gained at least 100 new customers for every 10,000 e-mail addresses that it rents from other web sites. Working with email vendor eWayDirect Inc., Palm Beach Jewelry segments these lists and only sends to populations that are more likely to buy.

In a move to keep their streets cleaner and help make garbage pick up more effective, some cities are testing public trash cans that will email the garbage collectors when they are full and need to be picked up. The trash cans are called Big Belly and they come with a built-in trash compactor. They cost $7,000 each.

Minnesota Representative Michele Bachmann is trying to settle a lawsuit claiming that during her 2012 presidential campaign members of her team stole an email list from an Iowa campaign staffer. According to reports, Bachmann went to Iowa on Monday to meet with attorneys for the Iowa staffer Barb Heki.

Evomail is a new iPad app that is designed for email management that takes advantage of gesture technology. The iPad-only app lets users use gestures to organize and read through all of their email. At this point it is only compatible with Gmail.

Spam marked its 35th birthday this past week. The first unsolicited email message was sent on May 3, 1978. That day, Gary Thuerk sent a message promoting a new computer from Digital Equipment Corporation (a company that is no longer in business) to a mailing list of 393 people.

Online soccer retailer soccerloco has grown its email list and increased conversion rates by creating an abandoned shopping cart email program. Since the e-commerce company began sending triggered emails with the help of email marketing service provider Listrak, the retailer has seen a 17% increase in conversion rates with an average order value of $121.

In the same way that Google will automatically spell check an email message in Gmail, the company is filing a patent that would let them check if email users are using Gmail to violate the law or policy. It's called the Policy Violation Checker, and it would allow Google to scan messages as people type and prevent them from writing out text that includes "problematic phrases" that "present policy violations, have legal implications, or are otherwise troublesome to a company, business, or individual," according to the patent filing.