Google to stop scanning Gmail for creating targeted ads

The practice of analyzing emails of free consumer Gmail users has been criticized on privacy concerns

Alphabet Inc's Google said on Friday it would stop scanning Gmail content for creating personalized ads from later this year, bringing the widely-used email service in line with its enterprise offering, G Suite.

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The decision was outlined in a blog post by Google cloud computing chief Diane Greene, who joined the company in 2015 and has been responsible for the rapid growth of Google's cloud business.

Google's practice of analyzing incoming and outgoing emails of its free consumer Gmail users has been criticized on privacy concerns.



Google's G Suite business bundle have been gaining more enterprise users in the past year, with more than 3 million companies paying for the G Suite service, the company said.

Gmail has more than 1.2 billion users worldwide.