*YAWN* I've been using GMail since launch, and I've been an e-mail user since 1997.
It should really be obvious that there's no privacy whatsoever.
You could run your own e-mail server, but that doesn't guarantee privacy on the other end. If you're using a company's e-mail server, of course they'e going to have access to all your e-mail internally, and heck, sometimes it is noted in the signature of these people's e-mails that they are using an address that is actively being watched.
It's the public's fault that Google got this big to begin with.
I was happily using WebCrawler and Yahoo's search engines back in the day before Google got shoved onto everyone's faces. It's not like you're going to willingly pay to use a search engine, so they have to find another way to make money, and well, "invading" your privacy as some people see it, is just the thing that works.