Google Opens Gmail to Ad Targeting, and Email's Data Bargain Breaks

Masthead deck. Google added a carve-out to its privacy policy that lets content from Gmail, Drive and Photos shape personalized ads once a user connects those apps to its Personal Intelligence feature, a change dated 16 October and reported by The Verge on 23 October. It landed inside a 24-hour stretch that also produced the starkest deliverability thread of the week: a sender with SPF, DKIM, DMARC and reverse DNS configured, banned by Outlook within a day of his first three test emails.

At a glance

• The inbox is now an ad input. Google's policy keeps its promise not to use Gmail content for personalized ads, then adds "unless you choose to make data from these services available to other Google services that support personalized ads" The Verge.
• The tech crowd noticed fast. The Hacker News submission drew 328 points and 169 comments after going up at 19:34 UTC on 23 October, and Techmeme pushed it to a 426,000-follower audience at 03:45 UTC today Techmeme.
• Deliverability is failing at the front door. A self-hoster who passed every authentication check was banned by Outlook with no stated reason and no appeal, while a cold-email operator reports usable inboxes now last 8 to 12 months instead of 3 to 4.
• Klaviyo shipped identity cleanup. The platform now finds and merges profiles likely to be the same person using shared emails, phone numbers and similar names, with no export or custom code.