Google has removed the Google+ requirement from Gmail, meaning that you no longer have to sign up for a Google+ account to create a new Gmail address. Google is still requiring a Google+ account to participate in other Google services, such as reviewing Android apps or posting YouTube comments.

UC Berkeley's Golden Bears were a little overconfident with their email marketing efforts over the weekend. The athletic department's store sent out an email offering 25 percent off merchandise to celebrating a win, just moments before The University of Arizona went on to win the game with a Hail Mary pass. Cal Bears Shop apologized for the mistake on Twitter, saying that the sale is still valid.

After Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto's old email account started sending emails contacting people from his address book, theories have been spinning online about how the account was accessed. GMX, the German company that powers the email account wouldn't comment on the specific issue, but a spokesman for the company told Forbes that it's possible that if the account is inactive for six months, another user could take control of the email address.

U.S. parents are behind parents in other countries when it comes to knowledge of how their children's online and email habits are being tracked in schools. According to research from SaveGov.org, only 51 percent of American parents are aware of the digital data that schools are monitoring on students, as compared to 75 percent of Malaysian parents and 71 percent of Polish parents who keep track of the practice. Those American parents that are aware of the practice are concerned over the practice. In fact, nine out of 10 are "concerned or very concerned about the practice."

Worldwide email volume hit 182 billion emails in 2013, according to research from Radicati Group. That number is expected to reach 207 billion by 2017. Business is the mail purpose of email traffic. According to the research, business users sent 100 billion of the 182 billion messages. The average business person sees between 100 and 120 emails on a daily basis.

B-to-b marketers have been finding that adding a video to their emails has helped them increase the response rates of those emails. Hubspot, for example, added a to its sales emails and saw a 16.4 percent increase in click thoughts, a 583 percent increase above the industry average of 2.4 percent industry benchmark for b-to-b emails. Wistia found that emails that have videos garner a 38 percent click through rate average, much higher than the company's regular emails which see an average 12 percent click through rate.

After being criticized in the media, Urban Outfitters CEO Dick Hayne sent an email to employees explaining why the company decided to sell a Kent State sweatshirt that looked like it was stained in blood. In the email, Hayne explained that the item was not actually soaked in blood and was a one-of-a-kind piece that was purchased at a flea market and resold as part of the retailer's vintage line, along with other vintage college sweatshirts: "We are proud of the Urban Renewal concept and believe that the vintage buyers have done an outstanding job in giving our customers what …

Hotmail is the most popularly searched for consumer email platform around the world, according to TechTimes. The tech blog used Google Trends to analyze the popularity of the most popular consumer email clients based on how often those services were searched for in Google. Gmail was the No. 2 email platform to be searched in Google, followed by Yahoo Mail, Outlook and AOL. Interestingly, AOL Mail was the most popular email client searched for in the U.S.

Yelp has settled a lawsuit with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) after being accused of illegally collecting email addresses from children without parental consent. In the suit, the FTC alleged that Yelp allowed minors to open new accounts during a four-year period beginning in 2009. Yelp contends that only about 0.02 percent of those members that signed up were underage. The online reviews company will pay $450,000 to settle the suit.

Marketing services firm Hubspot has released a new update to its email dashboard for marketers. The update brings with it new tools that help marketers better optimize their email marketing. One feature helps marketers build dynamic content into emails and analyze whether or not the email would be flagged by a spam filter. The tool also makes suggestions for ways to personalize the content.