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It's interesting how corporations are only people when it's convenient.

By "reading" I think they mean analyzing the content versus merely serving up text.

the exact same arguments could be applied to the NSA

Except that the NSA doesn't have a website for checking my mail and I am not explicitly sending my mail to them.

your post had nothing to do with that, you claimed google wasnt "reading" email because it was all automatic scripts, behind some facetious rhetoric.

The situation with the NSA collecting and reading email is no different, specificly in terms of datamining the contents.

I wasn't claiming anything, I am asking what it is supposed to mean. It's interesting that a machine reading something can be described as the action of a juristic person. I do think the implications would be that web mail becomes impossible.

What exact part of "reading" is a privacy violation?

If they would be an email provider, yes.