That's stupid. Particularly how you list 'plentiful storage' as a drawback, if that's the case then it's plainly an issue of law as it pits privacy against usability.

Also Gmail is the only webmail that offers server-to-server encryption: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57590389-38/how-web-mail-p...

And as mentioned in another comment you can delete messages over IMAP.

So in the future make sure you do some research as to avoid spreading false information.