Security and privacy is definitely one of the biggest concerns our clients bring up and one that I wrestled with for a while!

The bottom line is that I believe Google can offer better security and privacy than what most companies can afford to maintain themselves.

They have a very strong privacy and security policy that limits their access to your data. (you can explicitly grant them access to aid in t-shooting, but that’s it.) The have been used by companies who have to adhere to very stringent privacy requirements like HIPAA.

There are also very simple security controls in the administrative panel that give the business owner or administrator, more clear information about who has access to data than you would find in Exchange or other Email apps we’ve used.

Lastly with 20GB mailboxes, we have less PST’s and local data files floating around, so the chances of private data getting to the public because of a lost laptop is significantly mitigated.

In the end, you do need to trust your service provider, and I have seen some issues with smaller email providers causing problems when a client wants to transition away, I think this is a lot less likely to happen with a company like Google who has a lot at stake in developing and maintaining trust in offerings.

I realize I may sound like a Google spokesman, but it’s an evolution of opinion that’s been tested with a lot of different hosting providers. We’ve had experience with large and small companies offering services from Commungate Pro to hosted Exchange. – I have to say while I am not too worried about the privacy issue with Google Apps, there is a right solution for every business – if the client had the budget and need for a very high level of security, privacy and especially uptime (Think NSA or a Financial institution), Google Apps is probably not the right solution. But I think their service meets the needs of 80-90% of the businesses out there.

Thanks for the question!

-Colin

are you concerned with your email messages being viewed by Google?