Email wedding invitations are on the rise. In fact, Paperless Post has grown its user base by 3.5 times since last year and the company's overall revenue has more than doubled since October 2012.The growth in digital invites is not without its critics though. Some people think that the use of digital technology to deliver invitations to formal events is simply too informal.

Google's executive chairman met with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange this week at Ecuador's embassy in London. In the meeting, Assange told Schmidt that he doesn't use email because it is "too dangerous." According to Computer World, Assange said that encrypted email is even worse, "because it is such a flag for end point attacks ... but we do have encrypting phones. Unfortunately they don't work in all countries, but the SMSs work in all countries."

Consumer product emails are the most opened emails and have a median 25.4 percent open rate on average, according to new metrics from email marketing services company Silverpop. The research comes from Silverpop's 2013 Email Marketing Metrics Benchmark study, which analyzed email metrics by industry and global region. According to the report, average click through rates varied by industry with education and healthcare being the top performers. The study also revealed that list churn is still an issue for marketers. While the best marketers had less than a 1 percent bounce rate, other marketers had almost a 10 percent bounce …

Yahoo China announced plans to close its email service by August 19th. Chinese consumers were given the news this week that if they want to back up their emails they must register with Alibaba's AliCloud. Otherwise all of their emails will be deleted when Yahoo's mail service halts. According to the report in The Economic Times, the closing will affect millions of users.

The Senate Judiciary Committee is likely to approve legislation that would require police to get a warrant to search a citizen's emails. At a meeting today, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said that he doesn't anticipate any problem getting the bill out this year. Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), the author of the bill, said that he will bring the email privacy bill to a vote at the committee's next meeting, reports The Hill. The bill would update the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) of 1986, which allows police to search email with a subpoena, and does not require a warrant.

Peter Cobb, the co-founder of online retailer eBags, shared some secrets about the company's email marketing program at the eCommerce Conference in Melbourne this week. For example, the company employs two employees dedicated to email marketing and that they send out 2.3 million emails a week to a database of 800,000 people. The company's program is fairly sophisticated as almost half of the emails they send are triggered automatically based on a customer's behavior on their website. Cobb also revealed that about a third of the company's email sales come from these automatic emails. Overall, eBags' email program is responsible …

The Mormon Church has given slightly more freedom to Mormon missionaries in respect to their ability to send emails. In the past, these missionaries could only use email to send messages to immediate family members. Now they are able to send emails to friends, priesthood leaders and new converts. Missionaries must get permission from their mission president to send emails to converts or people of the opposite sex, and they must use public computers where a fellow missionary can see the screen.

Tylr Mobile has introduced a new mobile email app that is integrated with Salesforce.com called WorkinBox. The app matches up emails with CRM data to prioritize messaging based on who the sender is. The app identifies senders as customers and prospects and gives the sales person access to CRM data about that customer from within the email. Salespeople can use the app to sort email messages based on the opportunity size of the sender, as well as access the information to help address customer questions.

Yahoo debuted a new Yahoo Mail app for tablets today and its being well received. The app has the run-of-the-mill layout as the competition, with features like the a column on the left side of the screen displaying the inbox, and a larger square on the right displaying each message. But as Mashable points out, "Yahoo stands out from the competition, however, with a special full screen function for reading mail." Adam Cahan, Yahoo's SVP of Mobile and Emerging Products, described the app as "unboxing your email," explaining that the app is designed to take advantage of the tablet's full …

Microsoft is now giving its users the ability to add a two-factor authentication across its services including Outlook.com and MSN Hotmail. The authentication process gives users an extra layer of security. It requires users to enter two codes to access their account including a normal password and a code sent as a text message. Users can designate trusted devices that they use often to reduce the number of prompts they receive. "You use a code sent to a phone or email only once (per Web browser per device) and we remember that device in the future," explains Microsoft on their …