Reply to post:

"I could say more fool you for storing emails anywhere than on a computer that you control"

You just did, but in a mealy mouthed way. Moreover unless you are only ever sending emails you wouldn't want read in a business context encrypted and control the systems at both ends, you too, by your own judgement, are a "fool" as, I'll wager, are pretty all commenting on here.

I get fed up with these trite comments that effectively excuse companies of bad practice and let them off the hook by blaming the user. There are plenty of cases where private data is stored on systems outside of our control where we can reasonably expect and do expect privacy to be maintained. My bank account, my medical records, my tax records. While I accept these institutions haven't always performed perfectly and I don't expect all services will be accident free or free of the occasional breach we should and do expect the attitude towards the data should be that it is private, should be respected by the custodian and that it should remain private.

We are talking about large companies with high brand value. It is not beyond their capability to ensure personal emails are kept safe, secure and are never, ever deliberately read. Indeed such is the minimum we should expect. If banks were similarly loose with our bank accounts there would be no banking system. So I would suggest, if you keep your money in a bank, you are equally a fool for "trusting" a computer system outside of your control. Of course you do keep money in a bank, accept it is secure enough, so logically there is no reason not to expect a similarly high standard to applied to other data.