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.
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.