Why would a popular, i.e. free, web-based email service offer an option that prevents the provider from seeing your messages? That's the whole business model.

No, it's only been commonly encrypted along each hop of the journey from sender to recipient. It's like sealing your message in a security envelope that's then opened at your local post office, where the postal workers read it and update the database they keep about your personal interests so they can send you better junk mail (or make sure you're not competing with their in-house junk mail business), then they reseal it in another envelope and send that to the recipient's local post office, which unseals it and does the same thing, then seals it again for its final trip to the recipient. End-to-end encryption stays sealed for the entire trip and the postal workers can't unseal the envelope even if they want to. End-to-end encryption with key escrow means your boss is allowed to go to the sorting facility and open your mail but the postal workers can't.

So this isn't offered with the "free" version of Gmail because they can't profit by opening your mail and therefore carrying it for you is a net loss.

The Chautauqua auditorium of Shelbyville, Illinois, featuring statues in the Grecian style. Every part of that could be made up and I'd never guess. What a wonderful piece of now-obscure Americana. This is extremely mildly interesting. Thanks!

> I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidae with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of Caterpillars, or that a cat should play with mice.

- Charles Darwin