Does Google ever access your Google Analytics or other Google tools you are using to get more insight info about your website or app? Would they ever do such thing?
I wonder if they read your personal Gmail account to see if you're considering other offers? Or if you've corresponded with other people about their proposal?
Are you a lawyer? Their terms of service[0] and privacy policy[1] appear to give them pretty broad leeway:
"When you upload, submit, store, send or receive content to or through our Services, you give Google (and those we work with) a worldwide license to use, host, store, reproduce, modify, create derivative works (such as those resulting from translations, adaptations or other changes we make so that your content works better with our Services), communicate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute such content. The rights you grant in this license are for the limited purpose of operating, promoting, and improving our Services, and to develop new ones."
I could easily argue that spying on your email in order to gain advantages in acquisitions or hiring could be justified for "improving [their] Services" or "to develop new ones".
> I could easily argue that spying on your email in order to gain advantages in acquisitions or hiring could be justified for "improving [their] Services" or "to develop new ones".
You would lose in front of virtually any judge if you argued that.
Is there existing law that prevents Google from reading your email? You're willingly transmitting data through their service, and my understanding is that email service providers are not "common carriers" in the manner of the post office or a phone company.
There are people who can, every company has them. Usually there are levels, as in "can read number of emails", "can read subjects", up to "can impersonate accounts". Most of the time the mechanism is there for legal reasons. Sometimes people do bad stuff with it.
Normally very very restricted and these days probably requiring security clearance certainly Team leaders on some projects (and not secret squirrel ones) in BT where vetted to TS (Developed Vetting) Level.
Back when I worked in the early days of email (pre internet) on dialcom systems. I had level 6 (SYSAD) on all of Telecom Golds prime's plus Level 7 on the Billing systems and even the BT Security had mandated removal of some of the interesting commands
There where probably 15 or so people in the country that had that level of access