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Google researching ways to add PGP encryption to Gmail

The problem with many forms of symmetric encryption is that the service provider has access to the “master key” which allows the messages to be decrypted. Famously Snowden used the Lavabit encrypted email service which was forced to shutdown about a year ago. The service voluntarily ceased operating because the founder was probably being asked by the US government to hand over all of Snowden’s emails along with the necessary keys for decrypting them.
Google has research underway to improve the usability of PGP with Gmail.
There is also the problem of public key distribution. They can be transmitted in plain text, but the various means of distributing public keys have never gained popularity.
There is also the problem of public key distribution. I can easily give someone my email address but for them to send me an encrypted email they need my public key. This can be transmitted in plain text, but the various means of distributing public keys have never gained popularity. One problem is that if I have someone’s email address then I need to get hold of their public key. I can get it by emailing them or by searching on their blog or on social media, but it requires users to make a conscious effort to publish their public keys and for others to find them. A directory of public keys where you can look up keys sounds like a good idea, but there is the problem of misuse and problems with spam etc.
However the negative side for Google is it can't scan encrypted messages in order to display the appropriate adverts.
If Google develops a way to integrate PGP/GPG with Gmail, where it never has a copy of the private key, then Google won’t be able to decrypt emails for any government agencies as they simply don’t have the key.
However the negative side for Google is it can’t scan encrypted messages in order to display the appropriate adverts. Since Google is probably using user profiles more to display adverts then this might not be an insurmountable problem, however it will be interesting to see what Google can come up with.