Can you please tell me where you think a server needs to be located were you would consider to be "safe." Please note that every European country also falls into the will be happy to spy on someone camp.
India -> US -> Japan -> US -> Japan -> Singapore
It's still not ideal (they can still see who you're talking to), but you'll never have 100% privacy. Just make as much of the data useless as possible.
You do unless you're using PGP for all your emails, because SMTP can be easily intercepted in plan-text.
Of course, if you're using full end-to-end encryption (like PGP) for all your emails, you don't care so much about using HTTPS to fetch them, because you're using end-to-end encryption.
My Azure IP shows up in Seattle, yet the connection goes to Amsterdam. What you're seeing is where the owner of the IP is located; that is not necessarily the same as the server.
Privacy laws vary a lot within Europe - even within EU - and while I'm sure every country in the world is "happy to spy", as you put it, I can't think of any European country save for the UK whose spying is as intensive as NSA's.
http://www.lemonde.fr/societe/article/2013/07/04/revelations...