Johns Hopkins University has been confusing its applicants through a series of conflicting emails. First "Early Decision" applicants received a note saying that they did not get in. This was followed by an email saying that they did get in. Finally, the institution sent out an apology email explaining that the decisions were correctly posted on its website and students should follow that post to determine if they were accepted or not.

Almost 500 NFL employees have given their email and phone records to FBI investigators which want to know how Commissioner Roger Goodell and his staff handled evidence in the Ray Rice case. The investigation is currently private, but a public report from former FBI director Robert S. Mueller III is expected to come out later this month.

Contact management company FullContact has created an email plug-in to help users manage their Gmail contacts. The tool allows users to see their entire contact list within the Gmail app on their phone. This includes information such name, location, title and company, email address, links to social networks and recent social activities.

Guardians of Peace, the hacking group behind the massive Sony data break in, has a new message for the company: If they don't want their secret emails to be revealed, then they need to email the group directly. "We have a plan to release emails and privacy of the Sony Pictures employees," the message said. "If you don't want your privacy to be released, tell us your name and business title to take off your data."

Actor Seth Rogen is upset with the media for revealing the secrets in Sony's hacked emails. "It's stolen information. I think it's (expletive) up that anyone is talking about it," he told Howard Stern on SiriusXM radio this week. "I do think it's (expletive) up how everyone is doing exactly what these criminals want."

Ninety-one percent of marketers said that retargeted ads performs as well as or better than email, according to a new survey from AdRoll. The report revealed that revealed that fifty-four percent of both B2B and B2C marketers said that social was the best channel for retargeting, over mobile, search and email retargeting.

Chris Welch, news reporter for The Verge has been getting Amazon email receipts for another person, despite his attempts to stop receiving them. In a long post on the site, Welch explains how these are not phishing emails, but actually transactional emails for another Amazon customer. On an almost daily basis he is seeing the Kindle Fire activity of this customer named Carl. He tried to get Amazon to help, but the customer service team just told him to change the password, which as he writes, "It's not my Amazon account to muck with. It's Carl's. I'm hopeful Amazon's account …

The Vermont Department for Children and Family Services accidentally sent a mass email with an attachment that included the personal details of foster parents. The document included the social security numbers of 66 foster parents. The email, which went out on November 7th, was recalled the same day and the Department apologized to the parents the next day.

Seamless has sent out its Year in Review emails and not every customer is happy with their personal roundup. The online delivery service tells users how many times they have ordered food and how much money they have spent on delivery in these emails. T.C. Sottek, news editor at The Verge, didn't like this level of personalization. "I'll give you my money, butdon't ever tell me how much money I'm giving you," he quipped in a review of the email.

Carbonite, a company that offers cloud backup services, has acquired email archiving service MailStore for $20 million. The German-based MailStore has more than 22,0000 clients. The company's platform allows businesses to create copies of all emails and store them in a central secure server.