Google can now target ads using Gmail and Photos data under revised privacy terms

What Google changed

Google has rewritten a privacy commitment that previously ruled out using Gmail, Drive, and Google Photos content for personalized advertising. As reported by The Verge, the revision took effect on October 16th and was first noticed by Android Authority.

Where the old policy stated plainly that data from those services would not feed personalized ads, the updated terms introduce a carve-out. The restriction no longer applies, the policy now says, "unless you choose to make data from these services available to other Google services that support personalized ads."

That single sentence converts a hard limit into a conditional one, and the condition is a feature Google has been rolling out across its products: Personal Intelligence.

How the AI connection works

Personal Intelligence is Google's mechanism for letting services such as Search, AI Mode, and Gemini Apps draw on data from other Google products, including Gmail, Drive, and Photos, in order to deliver more tailored answers and recommendations. The appeal is relevance: an assistant with access to your mail, documents, and photo library can respond more personally than one without it.

According to The Verge, the policy update means anyone who has connected those services to AI Mode or other Search tools through Personal Intelligence may now see ads targeted on the basis of that connected content. Google's own policy text sketches the mechanics with a simple example: searching for mountain bikes could lead to sports equipment ads appearing on YouTube.

The guardrails that remain

The change is not an unconditional opening of user inboxes to advertisers. The Verge points to several limits Google says still hold. Advertisers do not receive the underlying content from Drive, Gmail, or Photos, nor personally identifying details such as a user's name or email address. Google also says it will not serve ads based on sensitive categories, naming race, sexual orientation, religion, and health as examples.

Those constraints may reassure some users, though they rest on Google's own enforcement rather than independent oversight.

How to opt out

Users who want to keep their personal data out of ad targeting have two routes, according to The Verge. They can disconnect specific apps from Search's Personal Intelligence features, or switch off Personalized Recommendations altogether through the Search Services Personalization settings page.

The trade-off is built in: disconnecting Gmail, Drive, or Photos from these settings means Google's AI tools lose the context that made their responses more personal in the first place.

Why it matters

The update fuses two decisions that used to be separate: opting into a smarter AI assistant and opting into ad personalization. People who enabled Personal Intelligence for better recommendations are now, in effect, sharing that same data with Google's advertising systems unless they go looking for the setting that unwinds it.

The scale magnifies the concern. Gmail, Drive, and Photos are among the most heavily used services on the internet, so the shift touches everyone who links them to Google's AI tools. It also illustrates how privacy commitments can be narrowed after the fact: a promise once phrased as absolute gains an exception once a new product line creates a commercial reason to add one. For users, the practical lesson is that consent given to one Google feature can quietly expand into another, and staying out of targeted ads now depends on checking settings that many people never open.