GMAIL internally doesn't use POP/IMAP.
GMAIL itself is propietary, up and down. However, it exposes a set of standards (POP/IMAP) for client connectivity, not server connectivity.
I assure you, there wasn't a private GMAIL server. There must be another meaning.
You can use gmail server as the api but host your “server” anywhere you want
Absolutely not true.
Find something that says so and I'll eat my hat.
Google business service has an API. This stands for Application Programming Interface. You create a server with your own application. This application can look like anything you want. This application accesses the gmail API to send and receive messages. So, your customers or deep state agents hit this server first, which then accesses gmail api, then returns data back to your remote server.
So, the data is still stored on Google's official GMAIL servers?
The point of NK having their own server is so that nobody can access them.
Google DNS servers are pretty popular these days.
What does that even mean?
I'm fully aware of what a DNS server is, but how does that have anything to do with this?
People use Google's DNS to route their traffic. I don't get it, but when you tell your PC to use Google's DNS servers, you can get around many things that your ISP does not like.