BBC News is reporting that California Democratic Senator Liz Figueroa is drawing up legislation to stop gmail over privacy issues: that Google will read all your private email sent/received through the gmail service and use the contents of your messages for targetted ads.
Bad Scenario: you are at work sending a quick private email to let your wife know that your sister called to let you know that your neice got a cold sore on her face: Up pops a big advert on your computer screen asking if you need medicine for Herpes and Cold Sores... co-workers see this!
The way I look at it is: why do people need 1gb of email storage... that's what your PC/Laptop/Pocket PC etc is for, set your email client to leaves messages on the server for a few days (in case you accidentally delete something you need) and 10mb of email storage should be emough for the average user.
Personally I would rather pay a domain registration company like Dotster or GoDaddy an extra 10 or 20 bucks a year to get email with my own domain name and no advertising.