this post was submitted on 04 Apr 2025
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Google sent out a notification that it will automatically opt you into using content from your email campaigns to help Google know what to show in Google Search, Shopping, and Maps. It will look for content around "new arrivals, sales or ongoing promotions, social media profiles, and others," Google said.

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[–] jqubed@lemmy.world 66 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Just to clarify, “you” in this case refers to companies and marketers, not consumers. Looks like this news website is for marketers/SEO industry people.

[–] helpImTrappedOnline@lemmy.world 27 points 1 day ago (2 children)

So this is another headline designed to get a kneejerk reaction outta people.

Basically if I'm a store that sends out a weekly email to subscribers, Google will "read" that email for SEO purposes.

[–] cupcakezealot@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

it's the automatically opting in people have a problem with

[–] helpImTrappedOnline@lemmy.world 2 points 12 hours ago

100% agree. Should be opt-in per email.

[–] Pandemanium@lemm.ee 3 points 1 day ago (2 children)

But how do they know which email that might be? Do they even know which of my accounts are for business or personal use? If I send an email from my business email to a bunch of friends and relatives to plan a party, will Google assume those are subscribers and pull my party-planning content from my email and put that info... somewhere... on my business page? I don't want them reading any of my emails, ever.

The email from Google was laughable in that it contained almost no info on how this process is supposed to work. All it means to me is that I don't have control over my own content. This should have been opt-in instead of opt-out.

[–] MangoPenguin@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago)

This has nothing to do with gmail or the emails you send/receive.

The process is googles search bot will subscribe google to marketing newsletters available on websites, it's outlined in the linked post: "Google will either subscribe to your emails automatically or you can add marketingemailtogoog@gmail.com to your email lists and that will do it."

I assume its more of it subscribes to your newsletter same as a user would, so when you send out the newsletter to "group 1", the google thing is also on that mailing list.

And yes, should absolutely be opt-in, per mailing list, per email.

[–] drspod@lemmy.ml 12 points 1 day ago

Yeah, because they’ve been doing this to us plebs for years now.