"Although Google's free "Gmail" service isn't even available yet, critics already are pressuring the popular search engine maker to drop its plans to electronically scan e-mail content so it can distribute relevant ads alongside incoming messages. Privacy activists worry that Gmail will comb through e-mail more intensively than the filters widely used to weed out potential viruses and spam," reports AP.

"Gmail opponents also want Google to revise a policy that entitles the company to retain copies of people's incoming and outgoing e-mail even after they close their accounts."

Comment: if Google decided to collate my e-mail with the searches it knows I run on Google and with my Orkut entry (it knows who my friends are) then there would not be much it did not know....