Google Promises to Stop Reading Your Emails in Gmail
Google will stop using ads inside Gmail that scan users' email contents in order to gather data and show ads relevant to users' interests.
The announcement was made by Diane Greene, Google's senior vice president of cloud. Greene is not responsible for Gmail for users, but is trying to sign up more corporate customers to G Suite, Google's cloud package of office software.
G Suite's Gmail is already not used as input for ads personalization, and Google has decided to follow suit later this year in its free consumer Gmail service. "Consumer Gmail content will not be used or scanned for any ads personalization after this change," Greene promised. This decision brings Gmail ads in line with how Google personalizes ads for other Google products.
Ads will continue to appear inside the free version of Gmail, as promoted messages. But instead of scanning a user's email, the ads will now be targeted with other personal information Google already pulls from sources such as search and YouTube.
Gmail users can change the relevant Gmail settings at any time, including disabling ads personalization.
G Suite competes with Microsoft's and Amazon.com's cloud-computing and business software tools.
Greene says that the G Suite has more than 3 million paying companies and had doubled its user base in the past year.