Google has updated its privacy policy to allow personal information from Gmail, Google Photos, and Drive to potentially be used for targeted advertising, raising new questions about how the company handles users’ private data.
The change, which took effect on October 16, introduces a significant exception to Google’s previous promise that it would not use content from these services to personalize advertisements.
As first spotted by Android Authority, the updated policy specifically affects users who connect their personal information to Google’s AI-powered services, including Search and Gemini.
I switched to tuta.com since a couple years back, it’s been pretty good. The user experience is worse, but it’s a good trade-off.
But of course it’ll take many years until I’m able to get rid of my Gmail account completely. Especially since I’m using a Google phone, and my car needs a Google account since its OS is based on/integrated with Android. And some websites don’t allow changing your email address, so I dunno what to do about those.