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Google updated its Privacy Policy effective date from October 1, 2026 to October 16, 2026 and revised its personalized advertising and content practices. The updated policy now describes a new opt-in mechanism allowing users to authorize certain Google services (like Search or Gemini) to access data from other Google services (Photos, Gmail, Drive) to provide personalized experiences and ads. Previously, the policy stated Google did not show personalized ads based on content from Drive, Gmail, or Photos; the updated language now permits this if users choose to make that data available to other services.

Google's Privacy Policy now gives an effective date of October 1, 2026, replacing May 26, 2026. One passage changed. It covers information Google collects when you are not signed in, which it stores with identifiers tied to your browser, app or device. The policy previously said this lets Google show more relevant search results or ads “based on your activity”; it now says “based on your activity across devices.”

Google updated its privacy policy to clarify how it collects and uses data when users are signed out, and to reorganize its privacy controls terminology. The policy now explicitly states that Google collects data not associated with user accounts and stores it with browser or device identifiers. The updated language also expands the list of activity types collected to include 'media (like images, files, audio and video) from your interactions' and reorganizes privacy control descriptions to distinguish between 'Search Services History' and 'Web & App Activity' settings.

Reissued 2026-10-07: this change was first recorded in reverse as CA-X-001296, which was withdrawn; this record describes it in the order it happened. Google updated its Privacy Policy, effective April 2, 2026. Where the policy described Google Analytics as the way activity on other sites and apps is linked, it now refers to Google's “ad and analytics services”, and it says data from Google Analytics can be linked to “cookies and other technologies that are related to visits to other websites and apps”. Activity information is now described as saved “by your activity controls” rather than “in your account”. One sentence now says this information “is shared regardless of which browser or browser mode you use”, where it previously said “collected”. And in the Incognito example, sites and apps that integrate Google's services now “still share information with Google”, where the policy previously said they “may still share” it.