Google has been showing ads in Gmail based on the content in the mail since the launch. Google today announced that Gmail content will not be used or scanned for any ads personalization starting later this year. The move is designed to ease concerns of enterprise customers. Even though scanning has only been used on users of the free version of Gmail, and not for corporate accounts.
However, confusion about the extent of the scanning had made it harder to sign up new corporate customers, said Diane Greene, head of Google’s cloud business to FT.
The company said that the decision brings Gmail ads in line with how it personalize ads for other Google products.
Regarding this on the Gmail blog, Google said:
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.
G Suite customers and free consumer Gmail users can remain confident that Google will keep privacy and security paramount as we continue to innovate. As ever, users can control the information they share with Google at myaccount.google.com