What changed

An announced update, word for word

Keepword flagged it as a disclosed edit: the page says it changed, with a new effective date. Next to the date, these passages changed:

  • The effective date moved from October 12 to October 16, 2026, with a new PDF to download.
  • Under “Provide personalized services”, a new sentence: “You may choose to allow certain Google services, including services like Search or Gemini Apps, to access data from other Google services you use, such as Google Photos and Workspace apps like Gmail and Drive, in order to provide you with a more personalized experience, subject to the policies and settings of the accessing service.”
  • “We don’t show you personalized ads based on your content from Drive, Gmail, or Photos” now goes on: “unless you choose to make data from these services available to other Google services that support personalized ads.”
  • Personalized ads based on “your interests and activity across Google services” became “your interests, activity, or personalized content from Google services”.
  • A new definition, “personalize content”, names a feature called Personal Intelligence.
policies.google.com/privacy disclosed edit
  p: Looking to change your privacy settings?
  p: Take the Privacy Checkup
  link: https://myaccount.google.com/privacycheckup | Take the Privacy Checkup
- text: Effective October 12, 2026 | Archived versions | Download PDF
+ text: Effective October 16, 2026 | Archived versions | Download PDF
  link: https://policies.google.com/privacy/archive | Archived versions
- link: https://www.gstatic.com/policies/privacy/pdf/20261012/p7v4n2m9/google_privacy_policy_en_eu.pdf | Download PDF
+ link: https://www.gstatic.com/policies/privacy/pdf/20261016/k8m9x4w2/google_privacy_policy_en_eu.pdf | Download PDF
  h2: Contents
  text: Introduction
  link: https://policies.google.com/privacy | Introduction
⋯
  p: We use the information we collect in existing services to help us develop new ones. For example, understanding how people organized their photos in Picasa, Google’s first photos app, helped us design and launch Google Photos.
  h3: Provide personalized services, including content and ads
  img: https://www.gstatic.com/identity/boq/policies/privacy/pp_2024/09-provide-personalized-services-lightmode.svg | 
- p: We use the information we collect to customize our services for you, including providing recommendations, personalized content, and customized search results. For example, Security Checkup provides security tips adapted to how you use Google products. And, depending on your available settings, Google Play could use information like apps you’ve already installed and videos you’ve watched on YouTube to suggest new apps you might like.
+ p: We use the information we collect to customize our services for you, including providing recommendations, personalized content, and customized search results. For example, Security Checkup provides security tips adapted to how you use Google products. And, depending on your available settings, Google Play could use information like apps you’ve already installed and videos you’ve watched on YouTube to suggest new apps you might like. You may choose to allow certain Google services, including services like Search or Gemini Apps, to access data from other Google services you use, such as Google Photos and Workspace apps like Gmail and Drive, in order to provide you with a more personalized experience, subject to the policies and settings of the accessing service. For example, Search may process some of the data that you allow Search to access to personalize content, including ads.
  link: https://policies.google.com/privacy | customized search results
  link: https://myaccount.google.com/security-checkup | Security Checkup
- p: Depending on your settings, we may also show you personalized ads based on your interests and activity across Google services. For example, if you search for “mountain bikes,” you may see ads for sports equipment on YouTube. You can control what information we use to show you ads by visiting your ad settings in My Ad Center.
+ link: https://policies.google.com/privacy | personalize content
+ p: Depending on your settings, we may also show you personalized ads based on your interests, activity, or personalized content from Google services. For example, if you search for “mountain bikes,” in Search you may see ads for sports equipment on YouTube. You can control what information we use to show you ads by visiting your ad settings in My Ad Center.
  link: https://policies.google.com/privacy | personalized ads
  link: https://myadcenter.google.com/ | My Ad Center
  li: We don’t show you personalized ads based on sensitive categories, such as race, religion, sexual orientation, or health.
  link: https://policies.google.com/privacy | sensitive categories
- li: We don’t show you personalized ads based on your content from Drive, Gmail, or Photos.
+ li: We don’t show you personalized ads based on your content from Drive, Gmail, or Google Photos, unless you choose to make data from these services available to other Google services that support personalized ads.
  li: We don’t share information that personally identifies you with advertisers, such as your name or email, unless you ask us to. For example, if you see an ad for a nearby flower shop and select the “tap to call” button, we’ll connect your call and may share your phone number with the flower shop.
  img: https://www.gstatic.com/policies/privacy/900a793eae04f4bddd675f8d95c4a794.svg | 
  p: Go to My Ad Center
⋯
  p: Go to Privacy Checkup
  link: https://myaccount.google.com/privacycheckup | Go to Privacy Checkup
  h2: Managing, reviewing, and updating your information
- p: When you’re signed in, you can always review and update information by visiting the services you use. For example, Photos and Drive are both designed to help you manage specific types of content you’ve saved with Google.
+ p: When you’re signed in, you can always review and update information by visiting the services you use. For example, Google Photos and Drive are both designed to help you manage specific types of content you’ve saved with Google.
  p: We also built a place for you to review and control information saved in your Google Account. Your Google Account includes:
  link: https://myaccount.google.com/ | Google Account
  h3: Privacy controls
⋯
  h3: Performance of their ad campaigns.
  p: Learn more about the technologies used for advertising.
  link: https://policies.google.com/technologies/ads | Learn more
+ h3: personalize content
+ p: If you choose to allow certain services to process data from other services, including for features such as Personal Intelligence, the same data may be used to personalize your experience. For example, if you ask Search a question about a recent hotel booking, Search may use information about booking details from an email to help suggest things to do near your hotel. Learn more about Personal Intelligence.
+ link: https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/16859283?p=lm-pi-faq&rd=1 | Learn more about Personal Intelligence
  p: You may also see personalized ads based on information from the advertiser. If you shopped on an advertiser's website, for example, they can use that visit information to show you ads. Learn more
  link: https://support.google.com/accounts?p=privpol_whyad&hl=en_US | Learn more
  h3: phone number

The whole output of keepword diff --bundle before.json after.json: disclosed edit (notice "update"): +10 -6 lines. Lines are the page’s text as Keepword normalizes it, without the markup.

The evidence

Two sealed records

Each file is an evidence bundle: what the witness saw, its signature, its place in the witness’s public log, and the page itself.

Before

Captured
16 October 2026, 13:42:44 UTC
Not before
13:42:42 UTC, drand round 33118266
Existed by
Bitcoin block 971723
Page
695,427 bytes, hash c427beeebf33
Attestation
24ff81d6cf359d2c20ce1fc3e2bcc5d0f34e52a8d052c5382119f6af1bbb8066
Log
leaf 1290
before.json 1.0 MB

SHA-256 9054eb8cfa9675bbccd689711c11570b03230a47c410e6aaf6772c70beb2dcbc

After

Captured
16 October 2026, 14:42:58 UTC
Not before
14:42:54 UTC, drand round 33119470
Existed by
Bitcoin block 971731
Page
696,950 bytes, hash 0774f1135d1b
Attestation
3c84c7c9af1e821e5aa5890566e3a856b7eee99dbaaa9e1361d5a13adbba3357
Log
leaf 1302
after.json 1.0 MB

SHA-256 aeee9c18d500ff2c74d46b923b201644bb38fee10b480fcac4bd4b2b8e540e0d

Check it yourself

No account, no server, no trust

With the keepword program, check both records and see the change on your own computer. Only the Bitcoin check goes online, to look up the two blocks.

keepword verify --bundle before.json --esplora https://blockstream.info/api
keepword verify --bundle after.json --esplora https://blockstream.info/api
keepword diff --bundle before.json after.json
keepword verify --bundle after.json --esplora https://blockstream.info/api
[ok  ] signature      signed by witness 01c2cab95d7c6eba88bf3ae6ab0e7847b6fd2d7d2db742164cb7135d915dd909
[ok  ] tree head      size 1634 root 734ba7d89cc0
[ok  ] log inclusion  leaf 1302 of 1634
[ok  ] cosignatures   tree head cosigned by 1 other key
[ok  ] not before     captured after 2026-10-16T14:42:54Z (drand round 33119470, 4s before the claimed time)
[ok  ] headers        1889 bytes, hash 1d231f413b05
[ok  ] body           696950 bytes, hash 0774f1135d1b
[ok  ] normalized     matches 13f9c7004f2d
[ok  ] renormalize    body normalizes to the attested norm hash
[ok  ] bitcoin        tree head existed by Bitcoin block 971731

VERIFIED: LOGGED + COSIGNED

Honest limits

What this proves, and what it doesn’t

It proves

  • A witness signed that it saw each version, at 13:42 and at 14:42 UTC on 16 October.
  • Both statements are in that witness’s public, append-only log, which Keepword’s second seed checked and cosigned.
  • Neither record was made before then: each carries a public random beacon from seconds earlier.
  • Both existed by Bitcoin blocks 971723 and 971731.
  • The page in each file is exactly the page that was signed.

It doesn’t prove

  • That independent witnesses saw the same. Only one witness, Keepword’s first seed, was watching this page, and a network verdict needs witnesses on three independent networks.
  • That Google really sent it, rather than the witness making it up. Independent witnesses, or the TLSNotary proof tier, are what add that.
  • That the cosigner is independent: it’s Keepword’s second seed, and a cosignature vouches for the log’s history, not for the page.

You don’t have to take the witness’s word for it, either. Google’s archive of its privacy policy lists the October 12, 2026 version, and offers its own comparison with the current one.

Get involved

One witness can only say what it saw

With witnesses in more countries and networks, the next change gets a verdict anyone can check, not one witness’s word.