Google is stopping one of the most controversial advertising formats: ads inside Gmail that scan users’ email contents. The decision didn’t come from Google’s ad team, but from its cloud unit, which is angling to sign up more corporate customers.
The practice has raised concerns among privacy watchdogs and creeped out some users.
Google still plans to show ads within Gmail. But instead of scanning through email content, the company's software will rely on other signals to determine which ads are most likely to appeal to each of its 1.2 billion Gmail users.
Does this mean that Google will stop looking at your email? Not exactly. The company has also long been scanning Gmail accounts for other reasons, and in fact increased product personalization based on the emails you get over the years.