Watch the video, transcript and sources
+ Google: Gmail/Drive/Photos ad promise gets an exception
- Opt-in only: Personal Intelligence connection
+ Sweden blocks ChatGPT and Claude on staff PCsGoogle's privacy policy says it does not show you ads personalized from your Gmail, Drive or Photos. This month, that sentence grew an eighteen word ending. And the old promise has a backstory from twenty seventeen. I will get to it at the end. Personal Intelligence is Google's feature that lets Search read your Gmail, your calendar and your Google Photos, so its answers sound like an assistant who has met you. Picture a butler who has read all your mail. The privacy policy is the contract that says what the butler may mention to the advertising department. You must be eighteen, signed in, and connect the apps yourself.
Here is the old sentence, from the version dated October first. We don't show you personalized ads based on your content from Drive, Gmail, or Photos. Fifteen words. Now the version effective October sixteenth keeps all of it and adds one clause: unless you choose to make data from these services available to other Google services that support personalized ads. By default, nothing changes. Android Authority says Gmail, Drive and Photos content is not used for targeted ads by default, and the exception applies to people who connect those apps. So how does the choice work? In your Google Account you turn on Personalized Recommendations in Search services, then connect Google Workspace and Google Photos. Today Workspace means Gmail and Calendar, and Drive is not on that list yet. Google's help page says the connection lets all Search services reach the data, from AI Mode to Maps to Shopping. Now the part Google stresses. Its help page says, quote, ads will not be based directly on your Gmail inbox or your Google Photos library. Search may reference summaries, excerpts and inferences from them, and that same information may be used to show you ads. Advertisers do not get your inbox or your photos, and race, religion, sexual orientation and health stay off limits. Those promises sit in the lines right above and below the changed one, and Google left both lines alone.
The policy gives two examples. For answers, a hotel booking: ask Search what to do nearby, and it may pull the booking details out of an email. For ads, mountain bikes: search for them and you may see sports equipment on YouTube. That mountain bike example was already in the old policy. Neither example is an ad built from an email. The new paragraph also adds that access is, quote, subject to the policies and settings of the accessing service. To opt out, open your Google Account and go to Data and privacy. Choose Personalization settings, and then Search services personalization. Under Connected content apps, disconnect Google Workspace and Google Photos, or turn Personalized Recommendations off entirely. That one switch sits in Search services, so it covers Maps and Shopping too. Android Authority warns that disconnecting may not erase what Google already saved in Search Services History. Google's own help page includes a line I did not expect. It says, please don't connect your Google content apps if they contain personal or confidential information that you wouldn't want used for training generative AI models. Google adds that it trains on summaries and inferences from your mail, and not directly on the inbox.
What is still open? Google's statement to Ars Technica says connecting is entirely opt-in and repeats the help page line: ads will not be based directly on your Gmail inbox or Photos library. Ars reads that as confirming your connected data may inform ads. The policy names Gemini Apps as a service that can access your other data, and Ars says the Gemini app has no ads today, though AI search can show sponsored content. In the EU, Google's rules add a separate choice to link Search, YouTube and ad services, and I could not tell how it meets this exception. Same week, the mirror image of this story. Sweden's Government Offices will block ChatGPT and Claude on staff computers from Monday, according to Sveriges Radio. Staff are pointed to approved tools, including Microsoft Copilot, whose security was raised after a review, according to internal information Ekot saw. The digitalization director wrote on the intranet that using AI services without an agreement can have consequences for information security. The tax agency and the institutions agency already block them, and the enforcement agency is deciding. At the transport agency, an internal audit this year found widespread, risky use of about ten different AI services. Some Government Offices staff keep a route to both tools through a platform the Offices built themselves.
Now the backstory I promised. In June twenty seventeen, Google said consumer Gmail content would, quote, not be used or scanned for any ads personalization. The reason then was business customers, who hesitated to trust Google with sensitive data. That promise covered scanning your inbox. The new exception covers what you connect to Search. Different mechanism, same inbox, nine years apart.
Verdict: NEEDS REVIEW — The promise now depends on a setting. Check it once.
Sources
https://policies.google.com/privacy
https://policies.google.com/privacy/archive/20261001
https://policies.google.com/privacy/archive/20261001-20261016
https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/16859283?p=lm-pi-faq&rd=1
https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/14202510?hl=en
https://www.androidauthority.com/google-personal-intelligence-privacy-3727111/
https://www.theverge.com/tech/1017600/google-personal-intelligence-privacy-policy-ads-update
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/10/updated-google-privacy-policy-says-your-gmail-might-be-used-for-advertising/
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50214218
https://www.theverge.com/2017/6/23/15862492/google-gmail-advertising-targeting-privacy-cloud-business
https://www.sverigesradio.se/artikel/chat-gpt-och-claude-forbjuder-regeringskansliet
And that's the diff for today. I'm Niko from Axrisi. Merge responsibly.
YouTube · Newsletter · thedailydiff.dev · forward this to the intern who deployed on Friday.