So, you have financial docs emailed to you and your nosy brother-in-law who is a server admin at google takes a look. They can’t do encryption at rest like better email providers because they need to read it to push their ads so thousands of employees and contractors can access your stuff. Or they take personal emails that may indicate financial stresses and you get flagged on a future googleFICO product? FBI getting a loose judge to give subpoena list of folks googling a politician before an attack on that politician and you are now on a person of interest list even though you were just curious about their trip. Some of your email exchanges with a friend suggest you have honest concerns about vaccines and the search engine skews all your inquiries towards anti-vaxxer sites and you don’t get needed vaccines for your kids. Internet companies become “mandatory reporters” and out of context emails or searches are flagged for referral. And on and on.
I have largely accepted that privacy has become an illusion held by the uninformed so I am not overly paranoid and generally accept that if somebody wants to know they will find out anything, but Google’s reach, attitude, arrogance, and culture (I have done deals with them and they lack any shame in my experience) put them on a risk platform all their own in my opinion.
