Since I just made a post about this on another forum, I thought I'd bring it here too. Now, if you want a free 1GB Email account then get it from Walla. Basically I said that GMail illegally scans the content of emails, and that this is privacy invasive. The reply was a simple "how can it be illegal if they tell you about it". Well the answer is that even if the customer did consent to the content of their own private emails being read by Google, unconsenting 3rd parties that send emails to GMail addresses, do not. Google is therefore illegally scanning the content of emails from 3rd parties.

Australian Privacy Foundation's letter

Here is the more important point:

Google has stated that the GMail system software will automatically scan the subject headers and contents of all these private emails to generate targeted advertisements relevant to the email content. Concerns have also been expressed that the scanning and automated content analysis will not only apply to GMail clients, but also to those with whom they correspond by email.

Discuss.