Advertising aside, I also understand there's a valid argument that we should all use strong encryption and secure email to give (those of us that need it) the benefits of herd immunity against government snooping. However - once again it's a not terribly high up my list of things to worry about right now. That makes me a slightly worse person on par with not recycling enough and leaving my electronic devices on standby overnight.
I willingly - and I hope knowingly - accept the trade-offs in using GMail. At least 3 people in this thread think I'm lacking in clue. Can someone please explain to me why?
Why do you trust your ISP more than Google? ISPs have much more shady practices and are able to match your online and real persona with 100% accuracy.
If you care about privacy, why do you use Android(non-cyanogen I assume)?
[0] This oversimplification has to die.
Presumably because the ISP doesn't generate the vast majority of its revenue from targeted ads based on information it collects from them.
There are commercial email providers in jurisdictions that do respect privacy. And it usually only costs the price of a couple of coffees per year.
If you're paying someone for hosting anyway it's a few days of extra work from a cold start to set up a server on Linode or Digital Ocean and become your own ISP/hosting co.
Most domain registrars will forward email for free, and most offer some form of cheap, but reasonable email service (smtp+imap).