Google removes Gmail ad-targeting exclusion from privacy policy, Ars reports

Google’s privacy policy previously ruled out using Drive, Gmail and Photos content for personalized ads. An October 16, 2026 update removed that explicit exclusion, Ars Technica reported on October 23. Google says its handling of data with advertising partners has not changed, while Ars points to a possible indirect route through personalized AI search.

The earlier policy contained a straightforward promise: “We don’t show you personalized ads based on your content from Drive, Gmail, or Photos.” According to Ars, that sentence no longer appears in the updated ad-personalization language. The change concerns a written boundary around content held in those services.

The route runs through an AI answer

The feature at the center of Ars’s concern is Personal Intelligence. It lets users connect information from their Google apps to AI products, giving those products personal context for their answers. Those connections reach beyond the Gemini app: they also support AI Overviews and AI Mode, Google’s AI search features.

That destination matters. The Gemini app does not currently carry ads, according to Ars, but sponsored content can appear in Google’s AI search tools. Sharing account information with an AI assistant therefore raises a different advertising question when the resulting interaction takes place in search rather than in the Gemini app.

Ars’s argument is that summaries or insights drawn from connected data could shape an AI search answer. If advertising then reflects the context of that answer, personal information could influence the ad indirectly. That is Ars’s interpretation of the policy and product connection, not a confirmed announcement that Google has begun a new targeting practice.

Connecting your apps is entirely opt-in. Ads will continue to be relevant to things like your query, the context of the response and your interests. Ads will not be based directly on your Gmail inbox or Photos library, and as always, sensitive information will not be used to tailor ads.

Google, in a statement published by Ars Technica

Google’s response draws the line at ads based directly on an inbox or photo library, while retaining the response’s context among the signals that make an ad relevant. The disputed distinction is therefore between the underlying private content and the answer that content helps produce—not simply whether an ad appears beside an AI response.

A Google spokesperson also told Ars that the clarification does not change how the company handles user data with advertising partners. The account says Google is not scanning entire inboxes to enhance advertising profiles or giving this data to third parties. Those assurances address different concerns from Ars’s argument about information shaping an answer.

The connected-app settings are the control

Google emphasizes that connecting apps is optional. Ars nevertheless argues that prompts and pop-ups encouraging people to enable Personal Intelligence do not fully explain the consequences. For someone concerned about this particular data path, its practical advice is to review the connections themselves rather than rely on the distinction between direct and indirect use.

• In Gemini, open the Personal Intelligence settings and disable the connected apps, following the route described by Ars.
• Alternatively, open your Google account settings and go to Data & privacy, then Personalization settings, then Manage Personalized Recommendations in Search Services.
• Open Connected Content Apps. Ars says users can disable connections to Workspace and Google Photos there.