Google now has all the data it needs, will stop scanning Gmail inboxes for ad personalization

Here’s a surprise announcement from Google:

It will stop scanning the inboxes of Gmail’s free users for ad personalization at some point later this year.

Google already doesn’t do this for business users who subscribe to its G Suite services, but until now, it routinely scanned the inboxes of its free users to better target ads for them. It then combined that information with everything else it knows about its users to build its advertising profiles for them.

Diane Greene, Google’s senior VP for Google Cloud, says the company made this decision because it “brings Gmail ads in line with how we personalize ads for other Google products.”