Email marketing firm PulseConnect has changed its name to PostUp and brought back its founder Joshua Baer, as a member of the company's board of directors. The rebrand comes as the company goes out on its own after spending years under the umbrella of PulsePoint. Earlier this year, the company was acquired by Transition Capital Partners and Petra Capital Partners and will be run independently under the new name.

Soccer fans in Brazil and Mexico were not checking email during games this past month, according to a new study from MailChimp. In fact, MailChimp's research revealed that open and click rates were down significantly on game day among consumers in both Brazil and Mexico. The study also revealed that US consumers were not affected by The World Cup, as consumers in the US still checked email the same amount on days when their team played in the World Cup.

Health care and education companies see the highest average open rates among emailers, according to a new report from IBM's Silverpop. The report found that on average health care companies see an average of 26.2 percent open rates for their emails and education companies see an average of 25.7 percent. The consumer services industry sees an average email open rate of 25.5 percent and nonprofits recorded an average of 25.3 percent. Retailers were lower on the list with an average open rate of 20.9 percent.

Software firm Cirruspath, a company that offers Gmail integration for Salesforce, has released a new tool to make it easier for Sales Cloud users to access data on mobile phones. The Cirrus Insight Mobile app allows sales people to combine email and sales activities. The app allows salespeople to track when a customer has opened an email and read.

Buying an NSA-proof email encryption tool? Think again. The German-based secure email provider Lavaboom, says that there is no such thing as an entirely NSA-proof email. While the company offers three-way authentication for its secure email service, they don't promise to be NSA-proof, and says that no tool really is. "If Barack Obama considers you a terrorist, it's likely you will be hacked," read a company blog.

Shell is among a number of major corporations who have been bringing in experts to train employees on how to use email from a compliance perspective. Email communications have been used in a number of lawsuits and the goal of these training sessions is to teach employees how to use the channel appropriately in order to avoid legal issues. One of common things that managers write in an email is the phrase "We're not in compliance," which can come back to haunt companies.

The UK government is pushing through emergency legislation that will require telecoms to retain user data, including email and phone contacts, for a year. The government claims that the legislation is vital to protect national security. The move was triggered by a 2006 European Union directive requiring communication companies to retain data for a year. The law was thrown out by the European Court of Justice in April 2014.

Wix, a company that gives small businesses the tools to design their own website, has launched an email newsletter tool. In the past, Wix users had to use outside services such as MailChimp to send emails to their cusomters, but now they can send them using the Wix ShoutOut tool. The feature allows Wix clients to collect and store email addresses and build newsletters all from within the Wix platform. Clients can even import existing email lists into the tool.

A library in Colorado has issued an apology for accidentally sending an email to longtime library patrons. The welcome email was only supposed to go out to new cardholders, but was instead sent to the library's entire list of 80,000 customers. The library's communications director blamed "a computer glitch" on the mistake, explaining that "a filter went bad."

Security researchers are Websense Security Labs have narrowed in on a form of Zeus variants that are being used to steal consumer data in spam email campaigns. The Zeus strains use Windows extensions to steal user data. These malicious tools are included in spam email URLs which link to .ZIP files that contain malware. Copy such as "Payment Confirmation" and "Failed Delivery for Package," are used to encourage respondents to click.