Whenever I sign up to an online service I am asked to read the ToS (including a link to them) and have to agree to them explicitly, usually using a checkmark that is not pre-checked.
I never encountered a time limit when reading the ToS or when the site is waiting for me to agree to them.
The working alternative is always to not use the service in question.
I don't see how a boolean value (checked or unchecked, there are no other choices) could be manipulated.

Yes, you have. The ToS are valid for both parties. If there is a change to the ToS then you have to be informed about it, so that you can think about leaving that service.
Anyways, what many people fail to see, if you use services like GMail (or basically any other unpaid Google service), Facebook, Twitter and many others then you are not the customer. The customers are those paying for your data. You are the product that is sold by those companies.

And IMHO that is a valid model, you exchange your data for free service. If you are OK with that than do it, nothing is wrong with that, at least if you always remember that there is no privacy when using these services.
If you don't want that either pay money for the service to a company you trust or do it yourself.

A relevant comic in two different forms:

Geek And Poke: The "Free" Model
Facebook and you

Yes, but they are not consumer rights -- they are an agreement between two parties. You've no money to refund and there is no product for them to have mis-sold. Also, for example, in the case of downtime or change of service it would be difficult enough to get compensation out of a company you have paid for a service from but one that you haven't paid it would be next to impossible.
Though, as you quite rightly point out, in this case you're the product and that's the price you pay for the service.

Indeed, I have misunderstood your comment, you are right.

this an interesting thread. I never thought of myself as essentially a data gathering mechanism for a search engine's customers. However I don't disagree with that interpretation.

At the same time while I limit cookies on my PC I have not read the privacy policies of any that I allow. So I have started to do this - a time consuming task but once complete I should have a good idea of what information I am sharing.

"Terms of Service" blah-blah notwithstanding, there is a fundamental issue here: "you are being watched."

And, no, no amount of "I agree" is going to change the fundamental principles of this matter. Just wait and see.

When, hundreds of years ago now but throughout the world, these principles are codified into National Constitutions that people see fit to build atom-bomb proof marble tombs around, "the world-wide whatever-it-is" isn't going to change that. Period. Ever.

I think that you can already see this happening as almost every heavily-used website is "changing its privacy policy" again and again and again: they want more information, because the marketing effectiveness of what they're using now is disappearing. But, in doing so, they're shoving more and more awareness of exactly what is going on, and the public doesn't like it. Agencies like the FCC are already listening.

What I fear most, though, is that it will take "a terrific, horrible crime" ... perpetrated by persons-unknown, "somewhere in 'the cloud'" at one of those IP-addresses that are known to be very unfriendly to certain other countries, who "program for less, always™" and who have been given access to "all that data." (Including: precisely where you are, and where your children are, and precisely where you all have been, minute by minute, for the past several years.) Your telephone is collecting, and transmitting, that data right now ... whether you are consciously running "an app" or not ... and, not for 'the guvmint' but for private companies you don't even know about ... and that "privacy policy" that you blindly clicked-through "said it was okay."

Don't believe it. And, don't be standing in the way of that tree when it falls.

Don't believe that "this is the 'New Reality.'" Don't base your business, and your career, on it. When this thing finally "breaks," it will break fast and fall hard and not get up again. "We, the People of (everywhere)" will see to it that it does not "fall on us." ("We're a country ... we can do that.") But, if you are a paeon in the IT-industry, it sure-the-hell could fall on you.

But there are no fundamental problems here -- at least not with Google and other's email offerings. They are very blatantly obvious about what they are doing and what you agreed to.
To use an analogy -- you have not woken up in The Truman Show but, rather, you are a contestant on the TV show Big Brother who, having watched the show before and signed the disclaimers, has suddenly decided you are being exploited and you don't like it.
I do agree that there are a lot of not so honest companies out there gathering data they're not telling you about but that's another issue entirely.

The fundamental issue is not that "you are being watched", the fundamental issue is that most people simply don't care. They don't care about privacy, opening their whole live on Facebook and Twitter.
They don't care about data being collected, they don't care about Google reading their mail or knowing about all of their search results.
If people would care they wouldn't use GMail, they wouldn't use Google or Facebook.

And yes, this is partly also about you. You didn't care to read the ToS before signing up to a Google service, so now you are also part of the "we don't care" group. By the way, have you moved to a different mail service by now?

random thoughts...

someone wrote that www is basically the same as normal mail, and it's totally understood that reading other people's mail is not legal.
i like that comparison, and i really hope legislation makes its way into the internet, and that they get it right: an email is not a postcard, it's a letter.

(in my country, you can put a sign on your letterbox "no advertisment" and it's totally legally binding - if you still get ads, you can sue them. it's been done. translate that into internet.)

i have been many times in the situation of having to sign something on paper, and when i actually take the paper in my own hands and start to read what it is i sign, i get these stares and sighs, like: weirdo, come on, sign it already... haven't got all day...
that's probably not legally "forcing me into contract" - it's more of a social thing, some sort of peer pressure: it's Not Cool to read the whole contract. if you do, you're a tinfoil-hatter. you're out.

For the most part (three-letter-agencies aside) that is true -- technically reading email not meant for you is illegal in most jurisdictions to a greater or lesser degree depending on how the computer misuse laws are interpreted. I agree that the mechanisms and laws around email could be better though.
The situation with Google is entirely different.

There is the "do not track" initiative ... and you know what ad companies did with it ? They wiped and shoved it in your face. Well that's how they are, you have to understand that and don't give them an inch, e.g. there is no such thing as a friendly ad or ad company. I block all ads, and give the finger to all ad companies. How do they like a taste of their own medicine ?

Oh, I think that we will soon find that they very much 'care.'

The role of any e-mail carrier, for example, should be that of a "bailee," and the service should be that of a "common carrier."

Let's say that I send a letter to you via United Parcel Service (UPS®) or Federal Express (FedEx®). Neither of those private companies is entitled to "steam open" our letter, nor are they permitted to gather and sell traffic-analysis data about just whom we're sending letters to. They are our agents, and their relationship to us is that of a bailee:
Let's say that you're on the phone with your sister, discussing the fact that your mother is gravely ill and not expected to live. It's illegal for the phone company to be listening-in, even with Siri-like technology, so that they can start sending you messages offering discounts on funerals.

What if you e-mailed your sister, instead? Is that "different?" No. E-mail has become yet another way by which "intended to be private" communications can be sent between parties, and very soon it will enjoy the same protections. Other statutes will quickly follow to curtail (and, to properly define) the current practices of "data mining." There will be laws which impose limits upon "where in 'the Cloud'" any personally-identifiable data is allowed to be, and, whom is allowed to have access to it ... or to the software that has access to it.

We've been living in the earliest-childhood days of the Internet. As we expected and as we hoped, it has become "part of our daily lives." (Far more so, I think, than many of us expected or hoped.) Therefore ... like any genie that was briefly unfettered ... it's about to become subject to law. Both "new laws" and re-interpretations of existing ones, such as the prohibitions against wiretapping and eavesdropping. I expect, for instance, a preliminary FCC Ruling within weeks or months.

@sundialsvcs: What is the difference between an antivirus scan of your e-mail (which, I'm sure leaves some log of the scan somewhere) and an automated parser? In both cases, in your "UPS" comparasion the package is opened and scanned..

What I'm trying to say is that we have a group of free services based on some conditions.. One condition is that they may collect and parse any of our information.. They aren't really hiding this and it is kind of public knowledge..
On the other hand, we use Google because it brings us the quickest searches.. Why do you think that happens?

Basically, we're at a stage in which we really don't care that a company "keeps track" of us if we already know they do this and the information parsed is not used in a mallicious way..

Another thing, considering the alternatives, aren't you more prone to use Google, Live mail, Yahoo or any of the big ones than any of the less known freemail providers? Smaller companies in which you have no ideea how the revenue is generated (to be able to provide the free mail) or in which you're not so sure about real humans reading your mail.. Or which might not really care of account security as much as Google...

As I said this is the case when you pay for an email service.
When you use Google you are explicitly agreeing to letting them read your email in exchange for them sending it.
Again, how are you paying Gooogle to send your email?
At the moment your argument seem to be that Google should provide you with email gratis and gain no advantage to themselves in doing so. Why do you expect a corporation, or anyone for that matter, to provide you with free services? Do you do all your work without payment?

Personally, as I may have mentioned, I don't like the idea of Giogle reading my enmail so I pay somebody to look after my email on the understanding that if they breach the contract or otherwise upset me I'll move provider and they'll stop getting paid.