Overview
- Google updated its privacy policy on Oct. 16 to add an exception that allows data from Gmail, Drive and Google Photos to be used for personalized ads when users permit other Google services to access that data.
- The exception mainly applies to Personal Intelligence — Google’s Gemini and AI Mode feature that can pull summaries, excerpts and inferences from connected apps to personalize answers and, according to Google support text, those same summaries may be used to target ads.
- Google says advertisers will not get raw email, file or photo content and that sensitive categories such as health, religion and sexual orientation are excluded from targeting, but it does not fully explain how those protections operate in practice.
- Users can disconnect apps under Connected Content Apps in Search Services Personalization or turn off ad personalization in My Ad Center, yet reporting notes those controls may be hard to find and may not clearly stop AI features from using connected data.
- Google has begun limited tests of ads inside AI Mode for users with Personal Intelligence enabled, a move that could prompt broader scrutiny from privacy advocates and regulators and change how inbox-derived signals affect the ads people see.