I'm not sure I understand the point of your reply. The https here is a red herring: Google can read your email even if you use https. https only prevents intermediaries from reading your email.
https is absolutely not a red herring. If you use an unencrypted wifi, and use http to access your online services, you do not care at all about security.
After the fact, blaming Google for recording open wifi data is absurd.
The point of my post was, if you're concerned about Google accessing the data between a computer and random services on the internet, then you should be REALLY concerned about them being an ISP. Just like you should be concerned about every OTHER ISP. The solution to not having ISPs - or other intermediaries - have access to all of your data is to use an https connection to your web services.
Do you see the acronym "https" show up, at all in the linked article? No. That's absurd. It is THE SOLUTION to people sniffing your emails and passwords.
Google KNEW it was providing internet services to everyone in Kansas City. This gave them access to ALL of the emails, ALL of the passwords, unless people took extraordinary measures, such as using a hypothetical "https" access. We spoke with one researcher and he said he didn't trust https because it ends in an 's', just like the word 'snakes.' Senior officials at Google knew that they had spent billions of dollars to provide this service to residents of the unsuspecting town. Congress to have hearings about this so-called "Internet Service." Top officials at the FCC scoffed, "How can they claim to not be evil when they provide internet service to children - some of whom are probably watching pornography?!"