Google Will Stop Reading Your Emails For Gmail Ads (bloomberg.com)

Google will soon stop scanning emails received by some Gmail users, a practice that has allowed it to show them targeted advertising but which stirred privacy worries. From a report: The decision didn't come from Google's ad team, but from its cloud unit, which is angling to sign up more corporate customers. Alphabet's Google Cloud sells a package of office software, called G Suite, that competes with market leader Microsoft. Paying Gmail users never received the email-scanning ads like the free version of the program, but some business customers were confused by the distinction and its privacy implications, said Diane Greene, Google's senior vice president of cloud. "What we're going to do is make it unambiguous," she said. Ads will continue to appear inside the free version of Gmail, as promoted messages. But instead of scanning a user's email, the ads will now be targeted with other personal information Google already pulls from sources such as search and YouTube.

Comments

Re:WHOA

[Anonymous Coward]

I bet this is a pure money play. They likely realized ads for e-mail content have a lower return then from other data sources. Google has so many data sources on you, they no longer need e-mail content.

Re:Read what they said

[DogDude]

As a retailer, I agree. We love getting everybody's personal information. We get a ton of information from our merchant services providers (credit cards) and of course, from Google and Facebook. Keep using Google and Facebook! We love it!