Alejandro Abad applied for an internship at a Spanish marketing company called Innwise. After submitting his application, the firm accidentally forwarded him and another applicant an email discussing how cheap the potential interns might work for. "Try to get him for free, or at the most, 200 euros for part-time (per month) for Alejandro," read the email. Abad posted the email on Twitter to expose the company's rude behavior.

The "Heartbleed" computer bug that surfaced this week is causing security experts to warn that email could be at risk. The bug not only opens hundreds of thousands of websites to data theft, including Amazon, Google and Yahoo. Developers are working to fix this problem, but in the meantime experts are warning that email servers and phones could still be at risk.

Andrew Auernheimer, a man that created a way to "slurp" email addresses from iPads, has had his criminal conviction overturned. In 2010, Auernheimer discovered a security flaw in the way that the first iPad was set up on the AT&T network. Through the flaw, he was able to collect 114,000 email addresses of users including Harvey Weinstein and Diane Sawyer. Auernheimer was charged with conspiracy to violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and found not guilty.

Microsoft is ending a feature in Outlook.com that lets users use the site as a custom domain service to manage personal, non-Microsoft related email accounts. For example, a a user could create the account user@mediapost.com using the tool. The feature was free. The service is no longer available and Microsoft is recommending that users upgrade their accounts to manage them via Office Small Business Premium.

Average email open rates saw an average of 31 percent in Q4 2013, up from 29.5 percent in Q4 2012, according to a new report from Epsilon. The Q4 2013 North America Email Trends and Benchmarks report also revealed that the average email click rates dipped slightly year-over-year from 4.5 percent in Q4 2012 to 4.4 percent in Q4 2012. The report also revealed that 62 percent of new subscribers were "unengaged" with marketers' email programs during the quarter.

ExactTarget, MailChimp and DotMailer has leadG2 Crowd's latest crowdsourced email marketing ratings platform. The metrics comes from G2 Crowd and TrustRadius' crowdsourced software recommendation engine. The company asked software users to review the email platforms that they use and give them scores based on satisfaction, market presence and features such as mobile previews, high-volume sending, and reliable delivery.

Heartbleed, a newly detected Internet security bug, could expose webmail user's passwords. The vulnerability, which gives hackers access to two-thirds of the world's encrypted websites, has been open for the last two years. Providers like Yahoo Mail and Gmail are warning consumers to change their passwords in order to increase security.

French unions representing tech industry workers and consultants have signed a deal which would require about a million workers to turn off their work phones outside of work hours. The deal would ban workers from sending work-related emails from 6pm to 9am, except in an emergency. The deal applies to employees of Google, Facebook, Deloitte and PwC. Employees will also have to refrain from looking at work-related materials on their computers or smartphones during non-work hours.

IBM has revealed plans to acquire email marketing firm Silverpop, in a deal whose terms were not disclosed. According to a report in Atlanta Business Chronicle, the transaction is rumored to have been for $270 million. IBM has recently acquired a number of marketing services firms including Unica, Coremetrics, and Sterling. The Silverpop acquisition brings database management and email into the mix.

The popular email inbox organizing iOS app Mailbox has released a new app for Android devices, as well as a beta version of its Mac app. The company has also released a new "Auto-swipe" feature for the app, which intelligently predicts which messages the user plans to archive, and which messages to bury.