While triggered emails only represent 5 percent of total email volume, they tend to get the highest response for email marketers, according to a new benchmark report from Epsilon. According to the study, which looked at 360 million triggered emails they sent in Q4 2012, triggered emails continue to outperform "Business As Usual" emails with open rates averaging 46.7 percent in Q4 2012. While this is down a percentage point from Q2 2012, these emails are still outperforming business as usual emails. Overall, the volume of triggered messages, which includes welcome messages, thank you emails, and abandoned shopping carts emails, …

Gordon Wozniak, a California-based city councilman has taken a lot of criticism for his recent proposal to tax email. His argument that an email tax could held finance the post office has come across as out of touch. However, Los Angeles Times political columnist George Skelton, has defended the Berkeley councilman's position, arguing that a tax on email would cost very little to users and would help consumers manage overflowing inboxes and could even help to eliminate spam.

Trusting your gut and making a good first impression are tips Chaunsea Keller heard from her mother when she would go out on dates. The VP of E-proDirect has taken her mother's advice and turned it into an advice column for email marketers. Among other dating tips that Keller says marketers can apply to their email programs include: "Make Yourself Available," and "Don't Give it All Away on the First Date."

Mailbox, an iOS app for organizing email, now has a million users. The app, which helps users organizer their inboxes, launched in early February and was acquired by Dropbox just last week. Mailbox requires a reservation for a user to sign up for the service, and according to CNET reporter Lance Whitney, who signed up for an account today, there are about 445,500 users ahead of him. He estimates that it'll take about five days to get an account, based on Mailbox's new member processing rate.

California State Senator Mark Leno, a Democrat from San Francisco, has proposed a bill that would give consumers more privacy in the inbox. The proposal, which was drafted with help from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, would require state and local government agents to get a warrant before asking email service providers for access to a citizen's email. Earlier this week, lawmakers in Washington met to discuss ammending The Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986, an change that would also likely require law enforcement to have a warrant to access a consumer's email account.

The British Broadcasting Corporation has warned its staff that its email network has been compromised. The broadcaster cautioned of a potential spam attack coming from the broadcaster's email network after hackers sympathetic to Syrian President Bashar Assad illegally accessed the network. Assad supporters then hacked into a couple of BBC Twitter accounts to post political messages.

Yahoo's email system was hacked into this month compromising the accounts of many Yahoo email users. The hackers, which are likely based in Russia, used the accounts of legitimate Yahoo email users to send spam messages. The March breach came after Yahoo's email accounts were hacked into in January, and Yahoo claimed to have fixed the problem. Apparently the suspicious log-ins came from mobile phones in various locations around the world. The FBI is investigating the hack.

Security software company AVG Technologies has introduced a new email security service through its latest CloudCare, cloud-based administration platform, bringing added email security services to the small-to-medium-sized businesses marketplace. AVG's CloudCare platform now includes spam blocking software to prevent spam, viruses, phishing attacks, malware, and denial of service (DoS) attacks. In addition, the update includes a new email archive feature that lets small businesses search, archive and recover emails.

Design is an important element when creating an email marketing campaign. To help marketers get the right person for the job, Chris Studabaker, gobal practice manager of design solutions at ExactTarget, has outlined some tips for hiring an email designer. He argues that marketers need to look at a number of factors when hiring a designer, including their web design experience, their ability to code, their knowledge of direct marketing, their understanding of analytics and their artistic relevance.

Illinois state representative Lou Lang claims that he has been getting a number of "canned" emails from AARP members who are opposed to legislation that he is sponsoring. He has asked the seniors organization to share the actual email addresses of these members, so that he can reply to them. According to Lang, the messages were sent through no-reply emails and he is unable to respond to the citizens' concerns.