Updated Google privacy policy says your Gmail might be used for advertising
Ars Technica Ryan Whitwam ● Covered by 2 sources
Google changed its privacy policy so Gmail data could help with ads. The old promise is softer now, and the link to its AI tools makes it messier.
Based on reporting by Ars Technica, Ryan Whitwam — read the original for the full story.
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Google has updated its privacy policy in a way that weakens a promise it had made for years: that it would not use content from Gmail, Drive, or Photos to personalize ads. The change was spotted by Android Authority after Google posted the new language on October 16.
Before the update, the ad personalization section was blunt. It said, “We don’t show you personalized ads based on your content from Drive, Gmail, or Photos.” That line is gone. In its place is wording that leaves room for sensitive data to inform ads in more situations than before.
That matters because Google is not just a search and software company. It is the world’s largest advertising company, and it already has a built-in path for moving data around its own products. The source points to Personal Intelligence, which Google released in early 2026.
Personal Intelligence lets users hand data from multiple apps to Google AI products. Google says the point is better answers, since the AI gets more context from your existing information. But once that context is flowing between services, the privacy line gets blurry fast. And now the company’s own policy language looks a lot less like a wall and a lot more like a loophole.
My take — AI-written commentary, not fact-checked reporting
Google keeps selling convenience and calling it intelligence, which is a tidy little trade if you’re the one getting the data. The problem is the same old one: when an ad company gets a new AI toy, privacy usually becomes the first thing asked to “help out”.
Read more about this at: Ars Technica