I used to care, but I don't anymore. They can read my emails, my code, track what websites I visit and what music I listen to, be my guest. I'd let them read my thoughts directly if we can build technology to do that lol. I realized that ultimately, these corporations are too stupid to do anything of value with all that data, so I don't feel threatened.
You're probably right, I'm an idiot. I just think there's not much we can do about it, so might as well not take it too seriously. At least for the innocuous type of surveillance like reading my emails to learn how to sell me product. Things that you really want to keep for yourself shouldn't really touch the internet at all.
This doesn't strike me as "reading" your emails any more than a router is "reading" your packets when it forwards them. As far as I know, Google employees (even high-ranking ones) can't randomly start going through people's messages-- that's the privacy that matters.
No but they can train a model to know everything about you and sell it.
They actually have precedence in that as it’s their legacy ad business.
I could absolutely see them getting more proactive with their ad business. Something like mortgage brokers want to know you executed an offer on a new home (high indication you will be shopping for a lender). Then that turn into, your employer wants to know you’re talking to other employers. Then of course there’s many more nefarious examples people would consider more invasive but may not even realize it leaked from their email provider.