Is Gmail Evil?

Just like the physical world, venturing out into cyberspace involves risk. You never know when you might get mugged, scammed or framed.

Which brings us to Gmail . . . First of all, I am huge fan of Google. It is one of those things that changed my life so completely that I can't really remember how life was without it. However, I can't help being suspicious of Gmail for the following reasons:

1) Their retention policy is creepy to say the least.
2) So, apparently "no human will read emails" which is good. However, creepy crawly dataminers going through my emails is hardly comforting.
3) We all know that there is nothing like a free lunch. You are paying for the "Free" 1GB of space by selling your personal information to unknown entities.
4) Lastly, you can't protect yourself from Gmail by just saying NO. If I reply to a gmail account (from my friends who have fallen to the dark side), Gmail will ignore my right to privacy and scour my email for sellable information.

In the face of this damning evidence, there are some who are still unphased. It is of little comfort that most of the other major players in the business (Yahoo, MSN, Hotmail) have similar policies.

So, what are the alternatives?