My comment was directly in reference to this thread's topic, which is the use of gmail data for ads vs. the use of gmail data for the personalization of gmail. Your comment isn't germane to that topic.

True, but the "no one has access to it" part is an unequivocal statement that happens to be false. We should keep in mind at all times who has access to all of Google's data whenever they wish.

You can't do threat modeling if you don't accurately model the various threats. Everyone at Google could be completely trustworthy but there's still huge insider risk thanks to US spying.

Again, my comment about "no one" was in the context of ads personalization, as in "no other part of google that might want to consume the model for broader use".

If we are going to do "threat modeling", we should also talk about the risk of nation state actors penetrating Google, or compromising your browser and getting access to your gmail that way. Or an accidental bug that changes everyone's password to be 12345. Yes, or the federal government could subpoena it.

Lots of things could be true and possible, but none of them are relevant in a discussion that's about the _internally permitted use of data within google_.

They are relevant in a discussion that's about the data flow from when Google gets data. As a Googler, the distinction between the two might feel very different, but as a user, I don't care whose fault it is, or what's technically going on in the legal description of Google's corporate structure; I didn't even notice the distinction between the two conversations (and assumed you were having the one I mentioned) until you pointed it out.