Gmail displays advertisements that are targeted to your emails. This means that when you or your friends talk about, say, indoor sundials (a special device utilizing a rotating lamp to show the time even when the sun's not shining!), the advertisement next to the message may read "Buy cheap indoor sundials" with a link to the sponsor. When Gmail was launched, this stirred up some controversy because people realized that Google's machines would read their email in order to target the ads. The truth is, all web-based email clients must access your mail content in order to store, process and display it, but Google decided to display targeted instead of untargeted ads. The rule of thumb is: as email may contain a lot of private information on you and your friends, only use email clients from companies which you trust to handle this information with care. This is true for Gmail, Windows Live Mail, Yahoo! Mail and even email that's not web-based: email messages that are sent and received must pass through an email server that's under the control of whomever provides you with email service.
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