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I have a question, is it really possible to get out of Gmail? I may switch to Fastmail or other alternatives, but all the people I know only use Gmail, so my al

• ocdtrekkie 9y ago
  This is more or less the case, an article about someone who bothered to count is here, though it's a few years dated now (2014): https://mako.cc/copyrighteous/google-has-most-of-my-email-because-it-has-all-of-yours https://mako.cc/copyrighteous/google-has-most-of-my-email-be... Also, bear in mind while reading the rest of this comment, that Google claims it no longer scans Gmail account content for ad targeting purposes: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-alphabet-gmail/google-to-stop-scanning-gmail-for-creating-targeted-ads-idUSKBN19E2C7 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-alphabet-gmail/google-to-... The big question is, if you don't have a Google account attached to that mail, can Google still profile you with it? Does Google relate all of the emails people across their products get from you? If you aren't logged into a Google account when browsing, does it help them target you with ads? Can the government get a portion of your email by requesting Google give them a copy of all emails from your non-Gmail account to Google servers? These are probably the key questions on how much of an issue this is. I also think there's probably a significant benefit from Google not having access to information in your email that wouldn't come from Gmail users. For example, if you don't have Gmail, Google can't know what you bought on Amazon or who you're friends with on Facebook.