I wouldn’t feel overly confident in the measures you’ve taken. If there’s one thing we’ve learned in recent years it’s that it’s not all that hard for people to get through even the best security measures. (Or Wikileaks would be outta business).
But, more to the meat of the matter, this is about people’s privacy. They should have no need to jump through hoops in wild hope of avoiding not having their privacy and personal info made public by an entity to which they’re paying money. Unless the company is a PR firm (and an awful one at that).
We don’t give the USPS the right to make copies of all our incoming and outgoing mail to sell on the street corner. This is just basic common sense. If anything, in an age when attacks on personal privacy are commonplace the goal should be to limit such attacks in any form, not aid and abet them.
But, more to the meat of the matter, this is about people’s privacy. They should have no need to jump through hoops
No, these are not hoops. IMAP/SSL was the default setting. The reason you need to do those things is not because the Feds are going to stop your cable company from spying on you, but because it's the right thing to do for your own security. It prevents wikileaks types of things.
We don’t give the USPS the right to make copies of all our incoming and outgoing mail to sell on the street corner.
And they can't if it is in a sealed envelope. The cable companies cannot decrypt your traffic to your email provider. Granted if you use them for your email provider (which is stupid because it locks you in) then they can read your email. Google can and does read your email. If you don't like that, choose a provider who won''t.