After opening enrollment to online training classes I noticed that 85% of the students who register have email accounts @gmail.com. Does Google become the main world post office for everyone or only for IT people? It’s scary to know that that there is a single company that can read all world emails. The big brother…
yakovfain.com 
I’m fine with that. It’s a 15+ year SE company after all, deserves the trust
There are good reasons for that:
1. Low number of outages, large amount of space – I have ~10 GB of history there for the last few years.
2. Built-in spam filters
3. Relevant content in chrome
4. When we promote certain web sites via email, and user clicks through – we get google search rating moved fast
5. Ability to add/remove multiple legacy or temporarily accounts and sort/merge them
This topic was one of few discussed in book called Googleplex (I might have audio book if you prefer that) – there is a difference between reading emails and processing them. But I agree everybody should have (and google must encourage that as well) a special client / subaccount with peer to peer key. You would loose all above privileges for the privacy for personal stuff.
I’m not questioning WHY everyone uses gmail – it’s simply the best email service. I’m just saying that people have lost their battle for privacy.
“I’m just saying that people have lost their battle for privacy.” – what do you mean, Yakov? If they would use yahoo.com, yandex.ru, mail.ru etc – do they have more privacy? What`s wrong with google`s clients privacy?
I’m not considering anything .ru – this is a different planet with no laws. I care about .com. Too much data in the same hands is bad. Waiting for new Snowdens .
I guess the people exchange a piece of privacy for a free service. Nothing can be free in nature.
With regards to recent revelations, I think people will tailor email usage to reflect the persistent threat of spying. If you really don’t want the government to know what you are talking about then you won’t use email or the phone. Maybe a tea party senator will propose a law that voters be allowed to scan elected officials emails and phone calls. Fairs, fair, in the name of national interest. I think I am going to start a private carrier service. How long do you think it will take before it’s infiltrated by a government operative?
I agree. If you’re a spy, do what spies do. Hide a microfilm under a stone in a park. These days NSA is busy sifting through emails and Skype – you won’t get caught.