Just because I'm curious I had a closer look at the Google Apps Agreements. I'm no lawyer but this sounds pretty nasty to me.

Regarding privacy the Google Apps Premier Edition Agreements states the following:

Google and its licensors shall own all right, title and interest, including without limitation all Intellectual Property Rights relating to the Service (and any derivative works or enhancements thereof), including but not limited to, all software, technology, information, content, materials, guidelines, and documentation, except that Google does not own Customer Content, or any End User or third-party content and/or information used as a part of the Service, including the content of communications appearing as part of the Service.

How I read it: Google does not own your content. However Google can index your content and thus profile users.

The terms for GOOGLE APPS STANDARD EDITION AGREEMENT are even worse. Just one example on termination of usage:

Except as provided in Section 18, Google reserves the right at any time and from time to time to modify the Service (or any part thereof) with or without notice. Customer agrees that Google may at any time and for any reason terminate this Agreement and/or terminate the provision of all or any portion of the Service. Notwithstanding the foregoing, Google will provide at least thirty (30) days notice to Customer prior to terminating or suspending the hosted email service (if provided to Customer).

What about privacy? One of the statements made in the privacy policy which is referred (and linked) to in the Apps agreement mentioned above.

Cookies – When you visit Google, we send one or more cookies – a small file containing a string of characters – to your computer or other device that uniquely identifies your browser. We use cookies to improve the quality of our service, including for storing user preferences, improving search results and ad selection, and tracking user trends, such as how people search. Google also uses cookies in its advertising services to help advertisers and publishers serve and manage ads across the web. We may set one or more cookies in your browser when you visit a website, including Google sites that use our advertising cookies, and view or click on an ad supported by Google's advertising services.

Then the story moves on:

We will not collect or use sensitive information for purposes other than those described in this Privacy Policy and/or in the supplementary service privacy notices, unless we have obtained your prior consent.

Sensitive information is linked and described as following:

"Sensitive personal information" includes information we know to be related to confidential medical information, racial or ethnic origins, political or religious beliefs or sexuality and tied to personal information.

So if you connect the dots;

Google does not collect or use sensitive informative like confidential medical information or religious beliefs except to help advertisers and publishers serve and manage ads across the web.

Again, I'm no lawyer here but this sounds pretty nasty to me. The way I interpret this:

You are logged in with at work and just used your company mail. Google places a Cookie on your machine. You then search for a specific disease or medicine. One of the advertisers with Google happens to be your healthcare provider. Your healthcare provider can now do marketing around your disease?

Is this really the case or am I misreading this?

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