Google has unveiled a new feature on Gmail that will allow anyone connected on Google+ to email each other. Users can now email Google+ contacts from Gmail, even if they don't know the recipient's email address. To do so, a user can enter the name of the Google+ contact in the 'To' field and their Gmail address will pop up. Users that don't want to be so accessible have the option of opting out.

Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) has reintroduced the Personal Data Privacy Security Act in response to Target's major data breaches that exposed customers' names, email addresses and credit card numbers, during the busy holiday shopping season. The latest version of the bill has been updated since Leahy first introduced it in 2005. "The recent data breach at Target involving the debit and credit card data of as many as 40 million customers during the Christmas holidays is a reminder that developing a comprehensive national strategy to protect data privacy and cybersecurity remains one of the most challenging and important issues facing …

Yahoo has made a deal with two different groups of users that were suing the company over allegations that the company violated privacy laws by scanning emails in order to serve targeted ads. Both groups dropped their lawsuits after meeting with Yahoo attorneys. One of the lawyers involved in one of the cases explained to ZDNet that the plaintiffs dropped the suits due to the firm's "representations."

Google was fined by French regulators for violating privacy laws in France. The online giant has to pony up a mere $204,000, for merging various privacy policies into one blanket policy, which is not enough for France's Data Protection Act. "On 1 March 2012, Google decided to merge into one single policy the different privacy policies applicable to about sixty of its services, including Google Search, YouTube, Gmail, Picasa, Google Drive, Google Docs, Google Maps, etc. Nearly all Internet users in France are impacted by this decision due to the number of services concerned," explained the government agency in a …

It turns out that consumers don't like getting emails about flowers. Unroll.Me, a tool that lets consumers unsubscribe from marketing emails in bulk, has revealed the top 10 companies that have the highest unsubscribe rate among its users and 1800 Flowers has topped the list and Pro Flowers came in at No. 3. Other marketers on the list include: Ticket Web, Party City, Expedia and Active.com.

New emails have emerged linking New Jersey governor Chris Christie to the closure of lanes on the George Washington Bridge, one of the most travelled routes into New York City. The emails reveal that Christe's staff used their power to close some of the lanes in order to punish the Democratic mayor of Fort Lee NJ Mark Sokolich, who did not endorse Christe for reelection.

Watch out marketers, there is a new tool that lets consumers unsubscribe from marketing emails en masse. It's called Unroll.Me. The tool mines a user's inbox and tells them how many email blasts they receive and then gives them the option to unsubscribe from as many as they'd like all at once or to "roll them up" into a single daily email digest.

Yahoo is now automatically encrypting all Yahoo Mail emails. Yahoo Mail has had support for HTTPS-SSL/TLS encryption over HTTP since late 2012, but hit required an opt-in. Now the feature is default. "Anytime you use Yahoo Mail-whether it's on the web, mobile web, mobile apps, or via IMAP, POP or SMTP-it is 100% encrypted by default and protected with 2,048 bit certificates," explained Jeff Bonforte, senior vice-president of communication products at Yahoo, in a blog post. "This encryption extends to your emails, attachments, contacts, as well as Calendar and Messenger in Mail."

Film producer Nathan Kahan recently moved his production company Good Universe from Santa Monica to Beverly Hills and his assistant made a huge email mistake when he sent out the news. Instead of bccing recipients, the administrator cced all of the recipients including the personal email addresses of 200 Hollywood industry power brokers and celebrities. Judd Apatow, Casey Affleck, and Warren Beatty were among the recipients. The email set off a chain reaction of reply all messages including a joke from Apatow, "I just made a hundred grand selling this contact list to gawker. Should we split it or donate …

Marketers will increase their budgets for email marketing, data and analytics, marketing automation, social media and content marketing this year, according to a new report from Salesforce.com's Exacttarget. The Exacttarget Marketing Cloud 2014 State of Marketing study, which includes feedback from 2,600 mid- to senior-level marketing managers across industries, also revealed that 64 percent of marketers are focused on increasing email click throughs and open rates.