Google to stop scanning Gmail messages for targeted ads

Google yesterday said that it will stop scanning Gmail messages for targeted ads. The internet search company said, "Google has decided to follow suit later this year in our free consumer Gmail service." What this means is Google will basically stop scanning the inboxes of Gmail's free users for ad personalisation at some point later this year.

Diane Greene, Google's senior vice president for Google Cloud, said that the company made this decision as it brought "Gmail ads in line with how we personalize ads for other Google products", Tech Crunch reported yesterday.

The company mentioned in a blog post, "Consumer Gmail content will not be used or scanned for any ads personalization after this change. This decision brings Gmail ads in line with how we personalize ads for other Google products. Ads shown are based on users' settings. Users can change those settings at any time, including disabling ads personalization. G Suite will continue to be ad free."

Mail of business users who subscribe to Google's G Suite services, is also not scanned, but it routinely scanned the inboxes of its free users to better target ads for them. Google then aggregates that information with other information it gathers about its users to build its advertising profiles for them.

Google's G Suite business bundle had been gaining more enterprise users in the past year, with over 3 million companies paying for the G Suite service, the company said.

Gmail boasts over 1.2 billion users worldwide.