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Your Gmail put to work for Google ads, Europe waits its turn

Connect Gmail or Photos to Google Search and Google can use them for your ads. Closed in Europe, but the policy text already applies there.

For five years, Google stated in black and white that it didn’t show you ads based on your Gmail. On October 16, that sentence got an exception, for anyone who connects their apps to Search. In Europe, the switch stays off. Google hasn’t said whether it will.


What changed

Up to the October 12, 2026 version, Google’s privacy policy came down to one blunt sentence, “We don’t show you personalized ads based on your content from Drive, Gmail, or Photos.”

The October 16 version, French text included, now reads “We don’t show you personalized ads based on your content from Drive, Gmail, or Google Photos, unless you choose to make data from these services available to other Google services that support personalized ads.”

It all hangs on that “unless”. Two new sentences add that “Search may process some of the data that you allow Search to access to personalize content, including ads.”

The same day, Google also tacked an update onto its 2017 blog post that announced the end of Gmail scanning for ads. It warns that this data can now be used for ads.

In practice, Personal Intelligence is the feature that personalizes AI Mode, the search mode that answers with AI.

You can plug your mailbox and your photos into it. Once connected, AI Mode can draw on summaries, excerpts and inferences taken from your content. That same info may be used to show you ads, and Google confirms it’s testing them in AI Mode.

Google swears ads won’t be based directly on your inbox. But in its notes on AI training, it also warns that for a short message, the summary may just be the whole email.

Advertisers don’t get access to your inbox. Small comfort, Google is the one reading.

And Gemini? It can read your connected apps, but Google repeats, on a page updated October 23, that your Gemini chats aren’t used for ads. For now, it adds. The ads ride on Search.

Europe in the waiting room

The feature isn’t offered in the European Economic Area (EEA), Switzerland or the United Kingdom. The official list of countries where you can connect your apps to Search includes no EU member state. If you live in France or Switzerland, this doesn’t affect you today.

The text, though, is already in force where you live. The feature just isn’t available there, and Google won’t say why, or for how long.

If you’ve already connected your apps

By default, nothing is connected. If you did turn these connections on, here’s how to switch them off. Google is reworking these settings, so the labels may change.

1. Disconnect your apps from Search. According to Google’s help pages, “Search Services Personalization” > “Additional Personal Intelligence” > “Connected Content Apps”. Turn off Google Workspace and Google Photos, then “Personalized Recommendations”.

2. Delete what’s already stored. Disconnecting erases nothing. You have to clear your Search services history separately, at activity.google.com.

3. Turn off personalized ads. In “My Ad Center”, switch “Personalized ads” to “Off”. That stops targeted ads, not the reading. As long as your apps stay connected, Google may use them to tailor AI Mode’s answers, and to train its models. To stop the reading, disconnect the apps and turn off “Personalized Recommendations”, as in step 1.

Our take, the real fix

Between the October 12 and October 16 versions, a promise written into the policy for five years, and made for Gmail as early as 2017, got a nasty exception. Waiting for the feature to reach you, if it ever does, means letting Google pick the date.

The one fix no settings overhaul can break is getting your mail and your photos out of Google. There’s email that doesn’t live off ads, and a photo library outside Google. Even for a full office suite, leaving Google is doable.

Sources