I agree, and I very much doubt they'd ever do something like this. My argument is just one of prudence - if you wouldn't leave your business plans and private d

I agree, and I very much doubt they'd ever do something like this. My argument is just one of prudence - if you wouldn't leave your business plans and private data lying around in a competitors house, why would you risk even the 10^-7% chance that doing so with Google would damage you when running your own e-mail server (or, if you don't want the maintenance, encrypting e-mail through G-mail) is relatively trivial? Looking back in time and given what's happened, would Google the Startup have been wise hosting their e-mail on Hotmail?