Did you know: if you connected Gmail or Photos to Google Search, that data can now shape your ads

Google’s privacy policy, effective 16 October, keeps its old promise with a new clause on the end: “We don’t show you personalized ads based on your content from Drive, Gmail, or Google Photos, unless you choose to make data from these services available to other Google services that support personalized ads.”

That exception is aimed at Personal Intelligence, the feature that lets AI Mode, Ask Maps and other Search services read your connected Google apps to tailor answers. The Verge, following Android Authority, reported the change on 23 October. Before, the sentence simply ended at “Google Photos.”

What Google says it does and does not do

Google’s Personal Intelligence help page now answers the question directly. “Ads will not be based directly on your Gmail inbox or your Google Photos library.” But Search may use “summaries, excerpts and inferences” from connected apps, and “that same info may be used to show you ads.”

The same page says:

• Advertisers do not get access to your Gmail inbox or Google Photos.
• No personalized ads based on sensitive categories such as race, religion, sexual orientation or health.
• Connecting covers all Search services at once: Search (including AI Mode and Discover), Maps, Shopping, Flights, Hotels, Translate and News.
• Connected data may be used to improve Google services, including training generative AI models on those summaries and inferences, and a subset is reviewed by people, including outside service providers.

Today the connectable apps are Google Workspace (Gmail and Google Calendar for now) and Google Photos, for users 18 and over in supported countries.

How to check and disconnect

1. In your Google Account, go to Search Services Personalization. Google’s shortcut is google.com/search-personalization, or go through Data & privacy, then Personalization settings.
2. Under Additional Personal Intelligence, open Connected Content Apps.
3. If Google Workspace or Google Photos shows as connected, disconnect it.

To drop personalization in Search entirely, turn Personalized Recommendations in Search services off on the same page, as Google’s settings help page describes.

The catch: disconnecting is not deleting

Google says that disconnecting an app, or deleting data inside it, “doesn’t delete any data from your Search Services History,” and that this data can still be used for product improvement, including model training. To clear it, delete the activity at activity.google.com. Your ad settings in My Ad Center are a separate control, so review those as well.

Practical takeaway

If you never connected Gmail, Calendar or Photos to Search, nothing changes for you. If you did, decide whether better AI Mode answers are worth ads shaped by the same inferences. If not, disconnect, then clear your Search Services History.