Google updated its privacy policy and gave it a new date. A Keepword witness had recorded the page at 13:42 UTC, and recorded it again at 14:42. Both records are sealed, so anyone can check exactly what changed.
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 Checkuplink: 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 PDFlink: 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 PDFh2: Contentstext: Introductionlink: 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 adsimg: 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 resultslink: 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 adslink: https://myadcenter.google.com/ | My Ad Centerli: 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 Checkuplink: https://myaccount.google.com/privacycheckup | Go to Privacy Checkuph2: 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 Accounth3: 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 Intelligencep: 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 morelink: https://support.google.com/accounts?p=privpol_whyad&hl=en_US | Learn moreh3: 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.
[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 971731VERIFIED: 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.