Team AA university's campus computing services has decided to stop being in the business of being an e-mail provider for the university's students, faculty, and staff, even for e-mail that furthers the university's goals. Instead it has arranged with Google for each of the students, faculty, and staff to get an account at gmail.com. By not providing e-mail for its students, faculty, and staff, it does not need staff to maintain the e-mail system, and it avoids having to deal with the problems that providing e-mail causes on the hosting computer systems, such as spam, viruses, phishing, liability for the effects of any e-mail message, etc.
Team BA group of concerned students, faculty, and staff at the university are concerned that the outsourcing of the university's e-mail to Google threatens privacy and academic freedom. In order to access their e-mail accounts, each of the students, faculty, and staff must agree to the university's terms of service that specify the conditions under which the university may access and disclose the contents of their e-mail without their consent. Moreover, it is known that all e-mail sent and received at gmail.com is subject to being read by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security because the post-September-11 Patriot Act allows the Department of Homeland Security agents to read without a warrant all electronic communication routed through the U.S.A.