Oooh Mart, this is interesting! 
I do not trust anything Google based. I do not use their e-mail and not their search engine either. I much prefer to rely on DuckDuckGo because they will not track my movements around the WWW or bombard me with adverts; not that any would get through because I deploy AdBlock+.
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Google has been doing this for ages now. Thats why when you are ever looking for something to purchase, you later will see ads for those things everywhere you go after that unless you delete your cookies or have software like Pixie has.
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Not if you donât use Alexa
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I also recommend a good clean out with a free cleaner as you shut down. I deploy C Cleaner free version and that clears everything just before I hit the shut down button. The only cookies I set it to retain are my log-in onesđ A clean only takes a few seconds.
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Do you do that every night or once a week, LD?
Some might call my actions pedantic, but I use CC every time I shut down. It literally only take seconds âŠ15 maybe 20 at the most.
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The extension puts a switch on the browser toolbar, which makes it easy and quick to use.
I donât know how prevalent the trouble is these days but in the past, ads have been a source of malware and browser hijackings. Iâd like to trust ads and disable the adblocker where they are used to pay for site costs but have trouble trusting them.
The very reason why that I donât use Chrome browser. Itâs developed by Google, a company whose main income is derived from advertising, so itâs not in their best interest to prevent advertisers on websites.
I, too, use Duckduckgo as a search engine, safe in the knowledge that I wonât be tracked. I also have software that prevents tracking cookies.
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But they donât read emails, do they, not officially? ⊠as Gee & Fraggle are stating above.
I did not say that emails are read that would be nigh on impossible given the billions that are sent each day but they are scanned for key words which is where the subsequent ads come from. 
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itâs likely to be conversations you have when your mobile phone is switched on. The phones snoop on you pick up key words and are linked to your social media. Iâve even had my personal facebook generate ads referencing conversations Iâve had with work colleagues on online meetings on a different device (not linked to facebook). This is the world we live in. Phones are listening in to what we say. The question is who else is eavesdropping?
My mobile cannot snoop as itâs a little non-smart Nokia dual SIM phone. Iâve resisted opting for a smart phone and unless the non-smart phones cease being made, I really cannot envisage me ever going smart phone-wise. I have no need for a mobile that is capable of anything other than dual sim with call and texting facilities. My Nokia has FM radio, plays my long play music lists (32Gb) and has memo recording as well as date reminders, so Iâm sticking with my wonderful little Nokia.
Yes, me too Pixie
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I have never said Google reads emails. I simply stated the fact that yesterday my wife received an email & today the contents of that email were apparent in her news feed. Google does not need to read emails to use them to optimise their adverts / news feed. That is what the whole Facebook, Cambridge Analytica scandal was about. It is about data.
Companies like Facebook & Google do not need to read individual emails, for them to be able to optimise their sales use of it.
ActuallyâŠI wouldnât be surprised if there was some sort of filtering system in place to scan emails for âkey wordsâ that represented a threat of some sort.
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The question is, whoâs monitoring the companies monitoring us allâŠ
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On a different forum, we used to type random words like GCHQ & potentially sensitive names like an upcoming international political summit into posts, in yellow. So the words cannot be seen without highlighting it & so that people such as GCHQ find it among their data scoops. Because they do & have for years monitored both phone calls & internet traffic for word patterns, or specific words.
Why? Because it was a joke & may just possibly have annoyed someone.
For example, you can almost guarantee word patterns around the upcoming COP26 environmental conference will be high on certain groups observation list. Our national security forces would be fools if they did not look for potential risks surrounding such an event.
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? (Who watches the watchers?)
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Exactly!