Google this week updated its terms of service to specify how its automatic email scanning technology works.
According to the revised document, Google software examines incoming and outgoing messages to create targeted ads.
"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," the new terms said. "This analysis occurs as the content is sent, received, and when it is stored."
The update comes a month after California Judge Lucy Koh denied a request to turn a long-running Gmail lawsuit into a class-action case, leaving plaintiffs to pursue the case separately—a costly move that may not be lucrative enough to merit moving forward.
At issue is a Gmail feature that anonymously scans the contents of peoples' emails to serve up targeted ads on the right-hand side of the inbox, something that has been around since Gmail debuted a decade ago.
The lawsuit claimed the practice violates federal and state wiretap laws, but Google has long held that scanning is done via an algorithm; no humans at Google are actually reading users' emails.
"We want our policies to be simple and easy for users to understand," a Google spokesman told PCMag. "These changes will give people even greater clarity and are based on feedback we've received over the last few months."
Email tactics may not be all that Google intends to update. According to the Wall Street Journal, the company is considering boosting its search engine results for websites that use encryption as an added level of security.
Google in March expanded its encryption practices to include China, as part of "a global expansion of privacy technology designed to thwart surveillance by government intelligence agencies, police, and hackers," the company said.
That is, of course, if the encryption works, the Journal said, citing last week's Heartbleed OpenSSL bug discovery.
Editor's Note: This story was updated at 12:25 p.m. Eastern with comment from Google.