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

So, how long until they shut it down?

[Anubis IV]

Kidding aside, if they're no longer mining free users for useful information, it becomes nothing more than a vehicle for delivering ads. Given that Gmail is a gateway into the Google ecosystem for a lot of people, I seriously doubt that they'd kill it entirely, but I wouldn't bet on seeing any more major increases to the storage space allotted for the free tier.

Re:Read what they said

[Rockoon]

Exactly. Google now scans your emails for a completely different, yet evidently more profitable, reasons.

Re:Read what they said

[Albanach]

They never said they would no longer scan emails altogether.

I'd be pretty pissed if they did. It's nice to grab your phone and see that evening's flight details, or get a reminder that you have a bill due in three days, etc.

These are features that make my life easier and are only possible by having a computer scan my email.

Re:Read what they said

[spire3661]

Google sent me an email the other day telling me that it was going to start adding events to my calendar from ALL emails. They were telling me they were literally going to fill my calendar with spam appointments. I was auto-opted in and this would be be my only notification of it. How can you trust a calendar you cant explicitly control? I imagine a future where people show up to events they didnt sign up for simply because some spammer sent them a properly formatted email.

Google is useful until it isnt. Dont fall in love with this 'feature', it will be used to spam you