Is Office 365 any better - or am I stuck running my own mail server if I really want privacy?
A 3rd-party will never be as private as running your own mail server but that's not exactly easy either these days.
I actually would like to turn it on if I could... I have labels and filters set up on Gmail to try and do the same thing but having google do it for me would be great.
As a reseller of GSuite I can tell you this is plainly wrong. Support is virtually nonexistent for paid GSuite (by this I mean, it's the same outsourced team with no escalation path to anyone in engineering). Avoid at all costs for a business.
The reality is every provider is both good and bad, and you're unlikely to get any major support unless you're the CTO of a major corporation.
The small engineering team of 5 people can't properly deal with more than say 1 support request per day (since any request getting to that level is almost certain to require adding/modifying a feature or the way the product works).
Gmail has 1 billion users. That means fewer than 1 in 3 million people can have a support request that gets through to the engineering team without overwhelming them.
Super easy to remove from the blocklists.
I am not entirely sure what you mean by delivery?
You need to delete your mail in less than 30 days, and store content you want to preserve in your home.
Nobody said that you need to run a mail server, just keep your data in your possession.
If you are worried about privacy with respect to your data, you only have limited protection for 180 days if it is on the providers server. (See Stored Communications Act)
In the US, the 4th amendment ensures that you are “secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects”. But when you put your papers or effects in the hands of a third party who isn’t your attorney, you lose much of those rights.
GMail IMO is the most honest of these services, as they are very clear that your privacy is limited in scope. Fastmail, Protonmail, etc imply things that are not as meaningful as one may think.
Outlook.com (free public service) does not scan emails for ads - I filed a support ticket for asking about this year's ago.
Additionally, if you pay for O365 (Home or Personal, maybe just Home?) and use the same Microsoft account for email (via Outlook.com) then no ads are displayed at all.
They have a free tier that they run as a "charity case". As with anything where your data _isn't_ the price, they have paid tiers too.
A first step to the answer to that question would probably be to compare all the terms and contracts.
If you really really want your privacy you're better off running your own. But then a lot of your contacts probably use a provider you didn't trust hosting your email, so there goes a large chunk of that privacy again...
They do not compete on Privacy at all in my opinion. So then the choice comes down to price, features and economic viability of the organisation. I think price and features they are on par with Office 365, well at least for individuals not for enterprises.
But in terms economic longevity I think Microsoft wins hands down. Fastmail might be days away from bankruptcy, none of us would know as it is private company. I would rather have my personal email, that is the glue to modern life, with a Trillion dollar company than with a relatively new minnow.
i’m pretty sure that’s not what you meant, so you need to clarify your question.