Google has changed its terms of service when it comes to Gmail. Reuters is out with the news,
(Reuters) – Google Inc updated its terms of service on Monday, informing users that their incoming and outgoing emails are automatically analyzed by software to create targeted ads.
The revisions more explicitly spell out the manner in which Google software scans users’ emails, both when messages are stored on Google’s servers and when they are in transit, a controversial practice that has been at the heart of litigation.
Last month, a U.S. judge decided not to combine several lawsuits that accused Google of violating the privacy rights of hundreds of millions of email users into a single class action.
The Huffington Post also covered the story saying:
Google’s updated terms of service added a paragraph stating that “our automated systems analyze your content (including emails) to provide you personally relevant product features, such as customized search results, tailored advertising, and spam and malware detection. This analysis occurs as the content is sent, received, and when it is stored.”
A Google representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
During one particular week last month, I wrote a long sequence of emails back and forth to a client in Spanish. In gmail, that is.
Subsequently, Youtube began showing me Spanish-language video ads with some frequency.