Google adds Gmail, Photos, and Drive ad-targeting exception to privacy policy

Google has revised its privacy policy to let data from Gmail, Drive, and Google Photos inform personalized advertising systems (targeted ads).

The exception appears alongside new language explaining how services such as Search and Gemini Apps can access information across a user’s Google account to deliver personalized experiences. Google’s current policy, effective October 16, 2026, specifically identifies Search as a service that may process information accessed with the user’s permission to personalize content, including advertisements.

The change qualifies Google’s assurance that content stored in Gmail, Drive, and Photos is excluded from personalized advertising. That protection now includes an exception when users choose to make information from those apps available to another Google service supporting personalized ads.

Google operates these services alongside its Search engine and advertising business, giving the policy implications across email, cloud storage, photo management, and AI-assisted search. Its Personal Intelligence features connect information across products so responses can account for details users would otherwise need to supply themselves.

For example, Google describes Search using hotel booking details from an email to recommend nearby activities. Under the revised wording, information made available for that personalized experience may also be processed for advertising, subject to the receiving service’s policies and the user’s settings.

Google’s support documentation explains how this works in more detail. Advertising will not be based directly on a connected Gmail inbox or Google Photos library, the company says. However, Search may use summaries, excerpts, and inferences from those sources both to personalize responses and to select ads. Advertisers do not receive access to the underlying inbox or photo collection.

This means information extracted to answer a personal question can also become an advertising signal. The policy permits that use; it does not mean every connected item, personalized response, or Gemini interaction is used for ad targeting, however.

Google also restricts personalized advertising involving sensitive categories, including health, religion, race, and sexual orientation. Its policy continues to state that Google does not share identifying information, such as a name or email address, with advertisers unless the user requests it.

Users concerned about these connections can review Search Services Personalization, open Additional Personal Intelligence → Connected Content Apps, and disconnect Google Workspace or Google Photos. Google cautions that settings are being updated, so the interface may differ between accounts.

Advertising preferences should also be reviewed separately in My Ad Center, where Google provides controls over personalized ads and the information used to select them.

Disconnecting an app does not delete information already stored in Search Services History, even if the original email or photo is subsequently removed.

Users who want to remove previously saved activity should review and delete that history separately through Google’s activity controls.