Google will stop its long-standing practice of scanning the contents of individual Gmail users for advertising purposes, the company announced in a blog post today.
Google’s Cloud Division Head, Diane Greene:
“G Suite’s Gmail [Google’s paid email service] is already not used as input for ads personalization, and Google has decided to follow suit later this year in our free consumer Gmail service”
I think there’s a lot of people that have no idea that Google does this in the first place. Regardless it’s good to see they’re dropping the long criticised practice for everyone later this year.
As for targeted advertising, that will definitely continue, don’t worry about that! Instead of it happening by reading your email they’ll use your search history, google ads tracking, youtube views and everything else they can possibly get their hands on to make sure you see that one item you looked at on The Iconic 4053450345 times a day.
Source: Google will stop scanning your Gmail messages to sell targeted ads – The Verge