[NewsPoster]

In response to recent leaks of harvested data being sent to the NSA from big providers, Google is now always using an encrypted HTTPS connection when users check or send mail. Additionally, Google claims that 100 percent of users' emails are encrypted when moving between Google's data centers, something the company calls "a top priority after last summer's revelations."

The official blog post noting the change claims that "today's change means that no one can listen in on your messages as they go back and forth between you and Gmail's servers -- no matter if you're using public Wi-Fi or logging in from your computer, phone or tablet."

Also discussed was Google's reliability record. The company claims that in 2013, Gmail was available 99.978 percent of the time. The high percentage equates to an average of two hours of disruption for any given user over the entire year.

[mr100percent]

This is a good step, but now we need to secure email in transit. Will Gmail ever support PGP or S/MIME encryption?

[Charles Martin]

Dear Google: people don't "listen in" to email. Love, the grammar nazi.

[davoud]

I hope the planners of the next 9/11-type attack don't take advantage of Google encryption to avoid detection. They're the only ones who could possibly benefit from this, because NSA is uninterested in the e-mails of us non-terrorists.

[Charles Martin]

Davoud, I'd say that's probably a naive attitude, but even so it's a controversial technique simply because it violates the Constitution. I could make a joke that Google doesn't want the government looking at your emails because it hates competition.