Now Google says it might use your Gmail and Google Photos data to target ads

krunck

I dumped Google years ago because I saw this, among other enshitification, was inevitable. Never looked back. Life is good.

ChrisArchitect

Source: https://www.androidauthority.com/google-personal-intelligenc...

cowlevel

Google's always done this, it's the entire reason Gmail exists. Now they're just saying it.

accrual

"might" === "absolutely will", just for the record.

varispeed

Well, if we didn't have corrupt regulators, Google would have been fined out of existence ages ago. That said it will be interesting way of exploitation. If you want to find people who have certain email content, you can serve them ads manipulating them into taking an action. Like buying a scam product / malware.

jsemrau

The enshitification of Google is inevitable. It went from all the space you ever need for your email to "you are at 93% usage. Upgrade to premium" in just a few years.

mandeepj

Gmail has already been targeted from day 1!

sippingabonedry

Friendly reminder when you click a link in a Gmail message, Google's servers also make a separate HTTP request for that link. For your safety I'm sure.

adamtaylor_13

You've gotta be able to actually show me ads before you can target me with ads.

zmmmmm

Since the comments are going to be flooded with people reactively assuming it is straight up directly accessing them, here is the actual qualification: > [they will not use for ads] ... unless you choose to make data from these services available to other Google services that support personalized ads So it is more reasonable than I think most people are assuming.

bluesnowmonkey

Jokes on them, I don't see ads anymore. I even have ads stripped out of podcasts I listen to.

amelius

Advertising is the root of all evil. Driver of overconsumption. Keeping us hooked on social media feeds. Targeting children, making them use addictive products. Making everything more expensive (because we are paying for the ads eventually). Collecting our data. Sometimes allowing malware to be installed on our systems. Frustrating the idea that the best product should win; instread the one with the biggest advertising budget wins. ...

ErroneousBosh

Awesome. Most of my photos (hundreds and hundreds of them) from the past week are of shitty untidy black spaghetti network racks that are completely beyond all saving and frankly require the building to be flattened and everything rebuilt from scratch. So if this can help a company find a way to advertise a clean and humane way of solving this problem that doesn't involve me tracking down and deep frying the network engineer that left this unholy mess, then quite frankly I'm all for it any my cash is waiting.

pessimizer

Now Google says that it has no values, no respect, and no fear.

torben-friis

Here's an idea: Targeted ads against workers of companies who buy digital ads. Drown them in content with influencers showing that digital ads have awful returns, and frankly, only people with small genitals decide to buy campaigns.

benoau

> Google won’t show you ads based on sensitive categories like race, sexual orientation, religion, or health. Conspicuously absent from the "sensitive categories" is political leanings...

ecommerceguy

I've noticed now that google is cf negative, search might as well be called google billboard. they are admaxxing everything for as much rev as possible. its terrible, and i often use perplexity and chat in lieu of google search. as a matter of fact i find perplexity often produces much better results.

privacyishuman

Ente Photos is the best alternative imo. It's super polished, lets you self-host, and is E2EE.

actapp80

> About DMA & your linked services > The Digital Markets Act (DMA) is a European Union (EU) law that took effect on March 6, 2024. As a result of Article 5(2) of the DMA, in the EU, Google offers you the choice to link certain Google services. > Those Google services include: Search YouTube Ad services Google Play Chrome Google Shopping Google Maps > You can choose to link all these services, choose to have none of these services linked, or choose which of these individual services you want to link. https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/14202510?hl=en So at least European users will be able to get personalized search and photos results without also having to share that data for personalized ads.