Google will no longer scan your Gmail emails

Great news for those vested in Google products. The company has announced it will no longer be creepy and scan consumers’ Gmail email account content for its advertising purposes.

“G Suite’s Gmail is already not used as input for ads personalisation, and Google has decided to follow suit later this year in our free consumer Gmail service,” Diane Greene, SVP of Google Cloud confirmed in a blog post.

“Consumer Gmail content will not be used or scanned for any ads personalisation after this change.”

This move is to better align the consumer Gmail offering with the already scan-free business offering and other products in Google’s G Suite.

“This decision brings Gmail ads in line with how we personalize ads for other Google products. Ads shown are based on users’ settings. Users can change those settings at any time, including disabling ads personalisation,” Greene adds.

This was an oft maligned feature of Gmail, a feature that conjured up questions of user privacy within Google’s ecosystem.

Notably, Google will still scan your mail for other services (think Google Trips for flight and accommodation information) with your permission. Users will also continue to receive targeted advertising should they desire… but just not on the G Suite itself.

“G Suite will continue to be ad free,” the company confirmed.

This change does bring about a few questions though.

Does Google now garner enough information from other data streams (social media, search, Android) that it can now abandon email scanning entirely? Additionally, how will this impact Google’s advertising revenue stream, which is by far the largest profit generator for the company?

Only time will tell on both counts, but at least now users can mail one another adorable doge GIFs without Google silently judging them.