[loup-vaillant]

Ah, you caught the catch. Indeed, remote, centralized accounts are nearly universal. But I wonder if people actually realize the direct consequence: their provider has access to their e-mail.

For instance, when I say to people that Google is performing semantic analysis on their e-mail, many are surprised, if not appalled. And the fact that no human is looking at the results doesn't reassure them much.

[bmelton]

Do you also tell them that every email provider worth their salt is performing some sort of analysis on their mail?

It's not particular to Google. Google didn't invent mail routing, or spam filtering, or any of the other reasons that people would be scanning my mail. Hotmail, Yahoo, et al have been doing it since far before GMail was even a product.

[loup-vaillant]

Oh yes I did. But I admit I put the emphasis on Google because of their "Big Brother" aura. From there, it's easy to talk about the dangers of centralized e-mail in general.