Under the previous policy, Google stated it did not show personalized ads based on content from Drive, Gmail or Google Photos. The new language retains that baseline but adds that the restriction does not apply if users choose to make data from these services available to other Google services that support personalized ads, according to the policy.
The change took effect Oct. 16, according to the policy.
Policy Language Cites Summaries and Inferences
The Search help page says Search may reference summaries, excerpts and inferences drawn from connected sources to personalize the user experience, and that the same information may be used to show ads, according to Google. That language indicates that advertising signals are not limited to raw content but can include derived characterizations of user data.
Google states that advertisers will not receive content or identifying information such as a user's name or email address.
Coverage of the policy change noted that the word directly qualifies the limitation on ad targeting.
Personal Intelligence Feature and Data Processing
Personal Intelligence launched in January as a beta for Google AI Pro and AI Ultra subscribers in the United States. Google said it would expand the feature to more countries and to the free tier in the future.
A Gemini help page states that data from connected apps is used to create personal insights about users, their relationships, and the people and things in their world.
Google warns that a subset of this data may be read by human reviewers and advises users not to connect content apps that contain personal or confidential information they would not want a reviewer to see.
Prior Legal Actions and Default Settings
In September 2025, a San Francisco federal jury ordered Google to pay $425 million for collecting data from users who had turned off Web & App Activity.
In November 2025, a class action lawsuit alleged that Google switched on Gemini by default across Gmail, Chat and Meet.
The new ad-targeting setting copies the previous Web & App Activity choice.
User Controls and Attribution
To stop the data use, users must disconnect apps from Personal Intelligence, turn off Personalized Recommendations in Search services settings, and delete Search Services History at activity.google.com, according to Google's help page. Each step addresses a different data pathway that feeds personalization.
Disconnecting a connected Google content app or deleting data in that app does not delete data from Search Services History, which is used for personalized recommendations and ads, according to the page.
Google's revised policy and help documentation describe the controls as user-directed. Privacy advocates have long argued that lengthy, jargon-ridden privacy notices are rarely read in full, a point documented in prior commentary on digital consent [1]. The company did not characterize the policy change as a reduction in user control.
References
- Google To Allows Ads Based on Gmail and Photos Data https://reclaimthenet.org/google-to-allows-ads-based-on-gmail-and-photos-data
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