› On 16 October 2026, Google updated its privacy policy.
› A sentence disappeared from the section on ad personalisation: “We don’t show you personalised ads based on your content from Drive, Gmail or Photos.” In its place is conditional wording that allows for this possibility when data is shared with other Google services.
› If you use Gemini or AI Mode in Search, this may affect you too.What the Google privacy policy change meansGoogle has not suddenly started scanning your inbox for advertising purposes - the company explicitly denies doing that.
› What has changed is that Google has confirmed in writing that a route exists for data from Gmail or Photos to indirectly influence the ads you see.