Gmail detractors who are upset that non-Gmail subscribers who send a message to gmail.com will have their messages involuntarily scanned by the Gmail ad-bot are operating under a seductively misleading understanding of the "privacy" of email.

The key element here to understand, and I can't reinforce this enough, is that once you have sent an e-mail you have lost control of it. NEVER send an unencrypted e-mail that you wouldn't be prepared to see in a newspaper or have to defend in court.

While you certainly have an expectation of privacy, you need to balance your expectations against the way that the real world works. For anyone with the technical wherewithall, your e-mail is essentially a post card that they can read as it passes by. This is another link between integrity and privacy. If your business communications have integrity, then a loss of privacy, while it may be damaging if it contains proprietary or valuble information, will not be fatal. The same can't be said of people currently convicted as a result of e-mails they wish that they hadn't sent.

I have a right not to be mugged. That doesn't mean I walk the mean streets with hundred dollar bills hanging from my pockets. I have right to privacy, but I bear some responsibility for ensuring that it is possible to be private.