Did you see the lawsuit involving GMail?
Have you read closely GMail’s privacy policy? Check this out. I will add however that I’ve looked through GMail’s Privacy policy and can’t find any references to what is recorded below.
From the Police Blotter:
What happened, according to the court: In November 2003, the Federal Trade Commission sued AmeriDebt and founder Andris Pukke on charges that the company deceived customers about credit counseling and failed to use customers' money to actually pay their creditors. AmeriDebt settled, but the courts are still trying to uncover the location of Pukke's apparently sizeable assets. A Washington Post article in September said the IRS is seeking $300 million from Pukke. His attorney at the venerable firm of Jones Day charges a hefty $575 an hour.)
Pukke's missing money has been linked to a Belize developer called Dolphin Development, which counts a fellow named Peter Baker as a shareholder. The court-appointed receiver in the FTC case, Robb Evans & Associates, sent a subpoena to Google on Nov. 1 asking for the complete contents of Baker's Gmail account. Baker objected to the subpoena, saying it could disclose confidential information, including attorney-client conversations. The subpoena asks for not only current e-mail but also deleted e-mail: "All documents concerning all Gmail accounts of Baker...for the period from Jan. 1, 2003, to present, including but not limited to all e-mails and messages stored in all mailboxes, folders, in-boxes, sent items and deleted items, and all links to related Web pages contained in such e-mail messages."
Google's privacy policy says deleted e-mail messages "may remain in our offline backup systems" in perpetuity. It does not guarantee that backups are ever deleted. Baker estimated he may have tens of thousands of e-mail messages in his Gmail account.
In a Jan. 31 ruling, Laporte rejected Baker's request. She said his attorney could withhold "truly protected" information but must "err on the side" of disclosure.
Baker asked the judge to reconsider. On Monday, Laporte reiterated her decision, saying the argument about confidentiality "is baseless" because her earlier order creates an exception for such e-mail messages.