It’s the same data Amazon and most e-tailers collect. The difference between Temu and Amazon is Jeff Bezos attended Trump’s inauguration, while Temu is a competitor based in China, which the US considers its greatest enemy.

Now what I saw next was completely unexpected: my email is sent out in plain text.

Yeah, that’s how email has always worked. Even if you go out of your way to use Proton, PGP, or S/MIME, your metadata is still in plaintext.

Technically valid but extremely rich coming from a US state of all places.

https://iowaspulse.com/iowa-flock-license-plate-cameras-privacy/

Safe to say they're not against spying in general.

If you're an average American, the spying Iowa allows and embraces put you in far graver danger than spying by China who doesn't give a shit about you or what you have to say about them. America, as we've seen, cares slightly more about what Americans say than China does.

I'd stay clear of Temu mainly because it's a shitty platform replete with blatant scams and you risk losing your money. Go to an actually reputable Chinese site if you want to buy from one, or don't if you don't.

Also don't buy cloud/app enabled cameras if you give a shit about privacy. From anywhere, period, because doing so guarantees you'll be spied on by someone, China or otherwise. Roll your own local network camera system with hardware and software you control or get ones that only record to local storage with no smart features.