The problem with this whole mentality is that is probably made him more vulnerable to surveillance, not less. No organization in the world spends more money to protect email and messaging services than Google does. This is a fact that frustrates people on HN endlessly, but all I can tell you about that is "sorry".

Your assurances that OVH adequately protects its IMAP servers, particularly from newly discovered vulnerabilities in its server software, are very poor. On the other hand, you can generally take assurances about Google's seriousness on these issues to the bank.

The mentality in this article is that hosting information outside of Google makes you less susceptible to lawful intercept requests from the USG. But that doesn't make game-theoretic sense given the worldview that mentality arises from. The only thing moving your data off of Google protects you from is a "lawful" request. But if you think that the USG is willing to bend or break the law to get your information --- an article of faith on HN --- moving that data elsewhere doesn't help you at all. They'll just use extralegal means to get the data.

Meanwhile, you've expanded the class of external actors that can get your data, by hosting it somewhere less secure.

Moxie Marlinspike, on this same topic, suggested on a liberation-tech mailing list that a dissident asking him how to securely communicate online would be steered towards Google Talk.