Privacy PEBKAC

Why are people so upset about Google's plan to offer free e-mail with the catch that computers monitor your e-mail and target your ads? As long as it is transparent, why is this so much creepier than the environments in which we e-mail today?
My first 3 or so e-mail accounts were given me by my employers. I'll wager this is the case for most users, except the uber-geeky. And employers uniformly have a policy that they can read your mail whenever they want, because you're supposed to be using it mainly for work anyway, right? (In fact, if you work for Diebold, for example, the company even claims copyright in your e-mails, in case someone sees them and they talk about problem with your machines and how to cover them up and charge your customers up the wazoo.) At one firm where I worked, the office manager, a perverse and sadistic little creep, would drop little reminders to lawyers that he was reading their email. "Guess you had a good weekend". Smirk. Just to remind us who was the pimp and who was the ho. In turn, some of us would use "loaded" words in innocent e-mails, just to tease him when he thought he was catching us in mischief. "Guess I'll resume my job in my enclosed office now." Smirk. I'm pretty sure another boss was reading my e-mail too, just to see what people were saying about him. Absolutely no one seems up at arms about this universal office policy, as long as the employee gets his Miranda warning, as it were, at orientation. It's understood that employees like being able to use that office e-mail address for personal stuff as well as work stuff, and if the price for that convenience is an occasional snooping. If you use your office e-mail to discuss your love life or your embarrassing health problems or your job hunting activities or to hawk your child's school fundraising schlock, you cross your fingers and hope your packets will be lost in the cloud and not come to the wrong person's attention, but you know that's what you're doing. Just like when you take home a few legal pads and pens for "working at home." And so does your friend who is spilling her juiciest secrets in e-mails sent to your business address. And you can bet if Uncle Sam comes calling asking for your e-mails, whether it's for civil litigation or for the war on terror, your company will cheerfully hand them over. That's probably in the employee handbook too. Caveat email-or. You want privacy, get your own account and use encryption. So why shouldn't Google make you the same deal your boss does? It's like yakking about your personal life on your cell phone at the airport (coffeeshop, bus, supermarket, shopping mall). Your privacy is protected by the fact that no one in earshot gives a hoot. You can save a few cents using postcards instead of envelopes, too, if you don't care who sees the content. Is it the universality of Google that's the problem? Will more people use gMail than use their companies' systems? Maybe it's a poor trade, your privacy for a few bucks worth of server space, but in my opinion, there's nothing particularly sinister about it. Just another free lunch that's not really free.