Does anyone remember when western nations were freaking out that Huawei would handle everybody personal data to the Chinese government?

Now, please tell me that American companies are better at privacy than the Chinese ones.

Btw, some alternative email providers in truly democratic countries:

* ProtonMail (Switzerland)

* TutaMail, Posteo, Mailbox.org and Eclipso (Germany)

* Runbox (Norway)

* Mailfence (Belgium)

Personally, I would not trust anyone (e.g. ProtonMail) more than Google.

If you have sensitive things in your emails, host your own mail, use GPG encryption or a one-time pad, or even avoid electronic networked machines altogether (depending on the level of security that you require).

Switzerland-hosted services are no safer than others, recall that Crypto AG, who promised to sell secure encryption machines, were just a cover by foreign intelligence services (jointly US/DE-owned/operated by the CIA & BND).

American companies give data to the U.S.

Chinese companies give data to China.

I don't trust either of them, but if I had to choose, I would use Chinese products in the U.S. and vice versa.

In that case, the US was worried about espionage, not violation of civil liberties.

None of those countries are interested in free speech, not even this particular kind of speech, especially Germany.