---
title: "Google rewrites its own wall: Gmail and Photos may now help aim the ads"
description: "A quiet October 16 privacy-policy edit creates an exception tied to the Personal Intelligence AI feature"
author: "Jan Sokol"
published: 2026-10-23T20:19:55Z
modified: 2026-10-23T22:44:43Z
url: https://rews.cc/a/google-rewrites-its-own-wall-gmail-and-photos-may-now-help-a-0f9147
language: en
tags: ["google", "privacy", "ai", "ads", "gemini", "tech"]
publisher: "Rews (https://rews.cc)"
---

# Google rewrites its own wall: Gmail and Photos may now help aim the ads

*A quiet October 16 privacy-policy edit creates an exception tied to the Personal Intelligence AI feature*

By Jan Sokol · October 23, 2026 · https://rews.cc/a/google-rewrites-its-own-wall-gmail-and-photos-may-now-help-a-0f9147

## In brief

- Google’s October 16 privacy-policy update softens its promise not to use Drive, Gmail and Photos content for ad personalization
- Exception applies when users share that data with other Google services that support personalized ads
- The opt-in Personal Intelligence feature connects Gmail, Drive and Photos to the Gemini app and AI Mode search
- Google says ads will not be based “directly” on inboxes or photo libraries and excludes sensitive categories
- Users can disconnect apps or disable Personalized Recommendations in Search Services Personalization settings

Every empire keeps its ledgers, and Google’s is written in the contents of other lives. For years the world’s largest advertising company offered one small consolation: the most intimate chambers of the archive — your inbox, your documents, your photographs — were declared off-limits to the machine that sells you things concurrently. The company’s privacy policy stated it plainly: “We don’t show you personalized ads based on your content from Drive, Gmail, or Photos.”

On October 16, that sentence acquired a tail. In an update spotted by Android Authority, the promise now carries an exception: Google will not use such data “unless you choose to make data from these services available to other Google services that support personalized ads,” as [Jess Weatherbed detailed at The Verge](https://theverge.com/tech/1017600/google-personal-intelligence-privacy-policy-ads-update). A wall is not demolished, exactly. A door is cut in it — and the door has a name: Personal Intelligence.

Personal Intelligence arrived in early 2026 as a way for users to hand data from multiple apps to Google’s AI products, on the generous premise that knowing more about you yields better answers. As [Ryan Whitwam explained at Ars Technica](https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/10/updated-google-privacy-policy-says-your-gmail-might-be-used-for-advertising/), the feature connects data from Gmail, Drive and Photos not only to the Gemini app but to AI-flavoured search — and while Gemini carries no ads today, AI Mode in search does show sponsored content. The plumbing, therefore, is already laid: if a service that receives your personal data also serves personalized ads, your data has entered the ad machine.

![An orange megaphone projects from a cream wall while envelopes and photo prints flow through an opening against a blue background.](https://rews.cc/img/a75ac28956dfeba0dda0582871a180834ff676aa.webp)

The new policy text, which The Verge quotes in full, frames it as user choice: “You may choose to allow certain Google services, including services like Search or Gemini Apps, to access data from other Google services you use, such as Google Photos and Workspace apps like Gmail and Drive, in order to provide you with a more personalized experience.” It continues: “For example, Search may process some of the data that you allow Search to access to personalize content, including ads.”

Faced with its own edit, the company deploys the grammar of reassurance. “Connecting your apps is entirely opt-in,” Google’s statement reads. “Ads will continue to be relevant to things like your query, the context of the response and your interests. Ads will not be based directly on your Gmail inbox or Photos library, and as always, sensitive information will not be used to tailor ads.”

Note, as Whitwam does, the load-bearing word: *directly*. If you query AI Mode with Personal Intelligence switched on, summaries and insights drawn from your mail and photographs inform the answer; that same data feeds ad targeting in AI search. The envelope is not opened at the advertiser’s table — but its contents set the tableware. The Verge’s account adds the listed guardrails: advertisers receive no access to your Drive, Gmail or Photos, nor identifying details like your name or email address, and Google bars targeting on sensitive categories such as race, sexual orientation, religion and health.

Those who prefer the old arrangement retain the levers: individual apps can be disconnected from Search’s Personal Intelligence, or Personalized Recommendations can simply be switched off via the Search Services Personalization settings page. The choice remains — which is the oldest and most elegant transaction of the data age. The archive holds everything; the archivist merely asks the subject to close the door himself.

## Sources

- [Updated Google privacy policy says your Gmail might be used for advertising](https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/10/updated-google-privacy-policy-says-your-gmail-might-be-used-for-advertising/) — Ars Technica
- [Now Google says it might use your Gmail and Google Photos data to target ads](https://theverge.com/tech/1017600/google-personal-intelligence-privacy-policy-ads-update) — theverge.com