Google Privacy Policy Now Allows Gmail and Photos Data for Targeted Ads

Google updated its privacy policy on October 16 to allow data from Gmail, Google Drive and Google Photos to feed targeted advertising, provided users connect those services to its AI features. The change reverses, by exception, a long-standing promise that content in those three services would never inform personalized ads.

Android Authority spotted the revision. The previous policy stated flatly that Google would not use Drive, Gmail or Google Photos content for personalized ads. The new text adds a single qualifier: "unless you choose to make data from these services available to other Google services that support personalized ads."

What changed in the policy?

The edit is narrow but consequential. It applies only to users who activate Google's Personal Intelligence feature, which links services such as Search, AI Mode and Gemini Apps to personal data stored in Gmail, Drive and Google Photos.

The policy now states:

"You may choose to allow certain Google services, including services like Search or Gemini Apps, to access data from other Google services you use, such as Google Photos and Workspace apps like Gmail and Drive, in order to provide you with a more personalized experience, subject to the policies and settings of the accessing service. For example, Search may process some of the data that you allow Search to access to personalize content, including ads."

A second passage describes how ad delivery works once that access exists:

"Depending on your settings, we may also show you personalized ads based on your interests, activity, or personalized content from Google services. For example, if you search for 'mountain bikes,' in Search you may see ads for sports equipment on YouTube."

In plain terms, the choice to improve AI recommendations by granting data access now also opens that data to ad targeting.

Who is affected?

The scope is limited to Personal Intelligence users. Anyone who has connected Drive, Gmail or Google Photos to AI Mode or other Search tools may now see ads targeted on the basis of that content.

Google has drawn two boundaries around the change:

• Advertisers do not receive access to Drive, Gmail or Photos information, nor personally identifying details such as a user's name or email address.
• Google will not serve ads based on sensitive categories, including race, sexual orientation, religion or health.

The company frames the mechanism as a personalization trade. Users gain more relevant AI responses and recommendations. In exchange, the same data pipeline can inform which ads appear.

How can users opt out?

Google provides two exit paths. Users can disconnect individual apps from Search's Personal Intelligence features, preserving some connections while cutting others. Alternatively, users can disable Personalized Recommendations entirely through the Search Services Personalization settings page.

Either action stops the flow of service data into ad targeting. Users who never connected their services to AI features are unaffected by the October 16 revision.

Why does this matter now?

The policy change arrives as Google pushes AI Mode and Gemini apps deeper into its core products. Personal Intelligence is the connective layer: it lets AI features read email, files and photos to generate better answers. That capability requires data access that Google previously kept separate from its advertising engine.

The October 16 language resolves that tension in advertising's favor. The wall between personal content and ad targeting now has a user-built gate. Users who open it for AI convenience cannot selectively keep the same data out of ad personalization.

For Google, the commercial logic is straightforward. Ad revenue remains the company's dominant income source, and ad relevance improves when targeting signals include real user behavior and stored content. The policy shift costs nothing for users who stay unconnected and monetizes engagement for those who do not.

For users, the calculus is less clean. The same setting that makes Gemini answers more useful also determines whether a Gmail receipt or a Photos library can shape the ads shown on YouTube. Google's own example makes the linkage explicit: a Search query for "mountain bikes" can trigger sports equipment ads on YouTube once personalization settings permit it.

The change takes effect under the revised terms as published. Google has announced no further policy revisions beyond the October 16 text, and users who leave Personal Intelligence enabled should expect the data connection between its AI features and its advertising systems to deepen as those features expand.

Grace Kim