I trust Google as a company. But as Google is under US jurisdiction it is affected by things like National Security Letter subpoenas (see: http://en.wikipedia.o

I trust Google as a company. But as Google is under US jurisdiction it is affected by things like National Security Letter subpoenas (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Security_Letter http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Security_Letter). This is a type of subpoena that does not require a probable cause or judicial oversight (meaning that the FBI can issue them without court order) and the recipient is under a gag order prohibited from speaking about them. In addition, Google seems to also abide to subpoenas issued by other countries, but does not clearly state under what conditions. E.g., is the German government only able to subpoena accounts of German citizens? Or of people who used Gmail in Germany? Or of any Gmail user if there is a probable connection to Germany? And under what conditions does Google adhere to the data retention laws in some European countries? I acknowledge that there are cases where it is legitimate that government agencies get access to one's mails. But if this is possible without court orders I consider this largely undemocratic. As a consequence, I try to keep as much information as possible on my own server (with a fully encrypted filesystem). So I: - Currently use Google for searches, but I have set my browser to delete all cookies on shutdown. I have not Flash installed, so I'm not affected by "Flash-cookies". I also tried out duckduckgo as search engine, but in my opinion the search results are considerably worse than Google's. - I have some domains using Google Apps that I've moved to Google in the past. But I'm currently in the process to also move the remaining domains (that only relay mails) back to my own server. However, I also acknowledge that this is somewhat futile given that 90% of people I communicate with use Gmail - meaning that all of my mails are stored on Gmail anyway.