Google scans purchases in Gmail and tracks them on webpage

Google appears to keep track of what users buy by scanning emails and placing purchases on a separate web page. Although this can only be viewed by the user, the data appears to be collected without the user’s approval.

Users can view their own purchases on a special Purchases webpage put online by Google. The data is automatically scanned from emails in Gmail, and then listed. So it seems to be a functionality that was purposefully built in by Google, but has not yet received any attention.

The list of purchases shows, among other things, which product was purchased by the user, at which store, when it was delivered and to which address this was done. Not all purchases seem to be recorded; this seems to depend on whether Google’s scanning software can accurately scan the email in question.

The functionality raises questions about privacy in Gmail. Previously there was outcry because the content of e-mail in Gmail was used for advertisements, although Google has since stopped doing so. Incidentally, it is possible to remove purchases from the list, but how the functionality can be completely turned off is not clear from the information that Google has put online. According to a Google spokesperson, who responded to CNBC, there is an option to turn off purchase tracking, but the setting is difficult to find. The same spokesperson says that Google does not use the purchase information to show ads.