Google has started rolling out its new Gmail interface to millions of users. In what appears to be an effort to increase revenue, the company is also placing advertisements inside Gmail inboxes. The redesigned interface separates emails through different tabs, such as Primary, Social, Promotions, Updates and Forums. There have been reports that users are seeing advertisements inside the “Promotions” tab in their redesigned Gmail inbox. Google has always placed advertisements alongside emails, however having ads in the inbox is a completely new practice. The company noted that “ads are based on information from your Google account,” noting that users can control the ads they see by changing their settings.
“Instead of ads always appearing at the top of your inbox, they’ve been relegated to a more appropriate place in your Promotions category,” a company spokesperson explained to VentureBeat. “In addition, we’ve raised the quality of these ads and won’t show you an ad unless it’s relevant — which means you may sometimes see no ads at all in your Promotions tab. You can also dismiss the ads you see in your Promotions tab by clicking the “X” button on the right-hand side.”
An example of an inbox ad follows below.
