Never has there been web privacy. The laws require that government have access to everything, including your security software. 1Password has a backdoor or a access algorithm, for example. The Information Awareness Office IAO and DARPA have had authority, programs and laws in place to monitor everything real time since electronic communication was invented. All civilians get to see is the surface of the laws never the depth of their authority. It's still difficult to get information on IAO's Genisys project that has been gathering all data for years, including cellphone activity. You can expect privacy from individuals and companies outside the network authority, and anywhere that you have a legitimate expectation of privacy there are laws to protect you, but there is no protection from government or the networks that are bound to abide by the laws like the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, which was written for lawyers and commerce, and nothing to the depth of access the IAO holds under national security.
In the late 90's an exception was put in place for medical records called HIPAA. Under this exception, agencies are held responsible for medical records, which explains why the healthcare industry has been so slow in moving towards electronic record keeping.
Now if you talk or write about your health online, you are undermining your own privacy, because there is no expectation of privacy in any public use software application unless specified. If someone captures your data illegally and uses it against you that's covered under HIPAA, but if you just spill the beans, your responsible. HIPAA does not protect you from the IAO, but they can never revealed or used that data against you.
Here in Florida inactive Medical Records are kept for 5 years, then purged. If you want to maintain your records for longer than that you need to keep your own. We store client record for 1 year in paper form and store them on new zeroed out hard-drives in encrypted AES 256 disk images using Disk Utility with no access to the web. Email is printed when needed, purged and data securely stored.
Encrypted email with a digital signature has an expectation of privacy. We use a Entourage Email Client but since Mac OS 10.7 Apple Mail has also had the ability to legitimately secure email, even Gmail which if you read this link will explain how to secure email and effect the Gmail privacy issue.
http://www.maclive.net/sendandreceiveencry...lwithapplemail/
