Apple has introduced a new iOS 8 update for the Mail app, bringing new gesture-based features to the email client. The app operates in the same way it did in iOS 7 with some new features for composing, sending, receiving and managing messages. For instance, the app now allows users to use inline swiping gestures to flag, archive and delete messages.

Eighty-three percent of opt-in marketing emails sent globally in the last year actually reached the inbox, according to a new report from ReturnPath. The other 11 percent were blocked and the other 6 percent went into the spam folder. This means that about one in six permission-based emails never actually reach the intended recipient.

After raising funds on Indiegogo, a group of developers have unveiled a new open source software that aims to make it easier for common email users to encrypt their email messages. The software is called "Pretty Easy Privacy" (PEP) and the idea is to make it easier for users of commonly used email clients to encrypt their own emails. The developers previewed the software this week and illustrating how it works in Microsoft Outlook's email client, and has plans to build encryption tools for Android, iOS, Firefox OS, Apple Mail, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Snapchat and Twitter, among other communications platforms.

Thirty-one percent of media buyers that purchase ads in B2B email newsletters only by email advertising, according to research from MediaRadar. The report, which is based on analysis done from March 2013-March 2014, examined 2,905 B2B email newsletters and 19,915 advertisers. The study revealed that 54 percent of advertisers that buy media in B2B email newsletters also buy print ads and forty-seven percent purchase additional digital ads to supplement their email newsletter buys.

Email marketing services provider Message Systems has unveiled the Adaptive Email Network, a new tool designed to keep track of email deliverability rules and bounce codes so that senders can stay up-to-date on the latest ISP sending policies. The network collects email feedback from the world's largest email senders to keep track of the sending rules for 12,000 global ISPs and use this data to keep best practices surrounding deliverability current for clients.

Russian Internet giant Mail.Ru has acquired total control of the Russian social network VKontakte, after an ongoing shareholder dispute. Mail.Ru acquired the 48 percent of VK.com that it didn't yet own for $1.47 billion. The deal terminates the ongoing fight between the two companies.

Yahoo has is now offering email accounts to Iranians again. The tech giant was the largest email service provider in the country until a 2013 policy made the service inaccessible to citizens of Iran. Essentially a rule that required users to share a phone number in order to create a Yahoo email account meant that countries blocked by U.S. sanctions could not access accounts which kept Iranian users from creating new accounts. Iranian Americans, human rights and technology organizations pleaded with Yahoo to change its policy and the company announced back in May that it would. Access turned on again …

Apple CEO Tim Cook has denied claims that Apple is reading its users' private email messages. In addition, Cook has said that the NSA does not have access to the company's servers and cannot read the private communications of its users. Cook also went so far as to explain that if the U.S. government were to hand over a subpoena for the data that Apple's encryption wouldn't allow that data to be turned over, because it is inaccessible to Apple itself.

Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom has plans to share an email which he claims exposes New Zealand prime minister John Key's collusion with Warner Brothers anti-piracy efforts. The email contradicts Key's public position. In the email which was allegedly sent between a Warner Brothers executive and an executive at the Motion Picture Association of America, the two discuss how Key plans to extradite Dotcom to the U.S. where he would be put on trial.

Pacific Gas & Electric and the state of California Public Utilities Commission have fired top officials after a controversial email exchange between the two has become public. The emails included details about a natural gas pipeline explosion in San Bruno, CA, exposing a close relationship between the two organizations.