There is a difference between people here knowing (or at least suspecting) that facebook keeps all that, and the lambda user. You would be ok if gmail kept a copy of every email you sent, received, the "drafts" you saved at one point? We can suspect they keep everything and still hope they are not in the end.

I can't speak for anyone else but I would expect gmail to keep all of those emails.

I think that koopajah was implying "even after you delete it" with regards to whether or not you would be OK with Google keeping a copy of your emails.

Yes I was. I always assume the worst from a website, so I think that google keeps even a copy of the drafts emails even after deletion etc. But not everyone thinks this.

And I think it's wrong to think that most people can/should assume this without being tech-savvy etc. A lot of people use facebook without even realizing that google indexes pictures profile, wall posts, comments to facebook application. You cannot ask them to understand that facebook is able to log EVERYTHING you do on a page (clicks, mouse movements, etC.) and has the technical/hardware means to sort/keep/monetize these data

They should know, but they really don't.

People really need to be educated on how this stuff works. You don't need to be tech savvy to understand that this data has some value to Facebook (maybe you have to be business savvy, or marketing savvy, etc...). Once you figure that out, it makes perfect sense that they'll keep this data around forever.

Then, once you figure that out, it should be no surprise that this info can be "found" again, whether through Europe V Facebook or Timeline, etc. Maybe Facebook (or GMail) could or should be more transparent about this, but in all honesty, I don't know if that will change anyone behavior...

Nothing surprising here. The money is in the data and the more data Facebook generates about its users, the better targeting options advertisers have.