Recommendation System

1. Purpose

A recommendation system decides what you see first. In a mail service this must be handled with care, because the order of your messages shapes what you read and what you miss. Indo Mail ranks things only to save you time. It does not rank to keep you in the app for longer, and it does not use your private messages to guess what to sell you.

This page lists every place where Indo Mail orders or suggests content, the signals behind each one, the signals we never use, and how you can control or switch it off. Items marked planned are not live today.

2. Where ranking and suggestions happen

Pro, Business and Enterprise plans show no ads, so the ad row does not apply to them.

3. Signals we use

Each feature uses the smallest set of signals it needs.

• For contact suggestions: how many times you have written to an address and when you last did. This is stored in your own contacts list.
• For search: the words you type and the words in your own messages, using the index kept for your mailbox only.
• For contextual ads: where the ad will appear, the country and language of the page, and the words on that page. The advertiser's own keywords and budget also count.
• For Important marking (live since release 1.6): whether the sender is someone you have written to or starred, whether a message is part of a conversation you replied to, whether it is a direct message to you or a bulk mailing (from standard list headers), and the result of sender checks.
• For planned Drive suggestions: when you last opened or edited a file, and whether you starred it.
• For tabs and smart views: the sender, standard list headers, the subject and the opening lines when a message arrives, read by fixed rules. Only the tab or view name is kept.

4. Signals we never use

• The content of your messages, attachments or Drive files for advertising.
• Your name, mobile number, address, age, gender, religion, caste, health, finances, political views or any other personal data to choose ads.
• Your browsing outside Indo Mail. We have no third-party trackers or SDKs.
• Your location beyond the country of the page.
• Whether you opened a message, or how long you looked at it, to rank other messages for engagement.
• Data from other people's mailboxes to build a profile of you.
• Purchased or inferred data from data brokers.

Contextual ads count clicks and impressions for billing and reporting only. They are not tied to your identity.

5. Contextual ads and "Why this ad"

Ads appear only on the free plan and are always marked as ads. They are never placed inside a message and never use what is written in your mail.

Our rule is that every ad carries a "Why this ad" explanation. It tells you in a sentence which context matched, for example: "Shown because this page is in English, in India, and mentions travel." It also shows the advertiser's name and lets you report the ad. The in-app "Why this ad", hide and report controls are being rolled out; until they reach your device, write to ads@indoemail.in and we will tell you why any ad was shown and review it.

Every ad is reviewed by a person or by our automated checks and a person before it runs. We do not accept political advertising. Our Advertising Policies list what is not allowed.

6. Priority inbox and tabs

Tabs, smart views and Important marking are live from releases 1.5 and 1.6. These rules apply.

• It is optional. Tabs are on by default, as in other major mail services, and can be switched off in Settings → Inbox. Important marking can be switched off in Settings → Indo Mail AI. Within every tab and view, mail stays newest first.
• The reason for a suggestion is shown on the message, for example "Important because you have written to this person".
• Nothing is hidden. Messages in other tabs stay in your inbox and still trigger notifications unless you choose otherwise.
• A message that fails sender checks, or carries a scam or spam warning, is never promoted.
• You can move any message to a different tab, and we treat that as a correction for your mailbox only.
• Your corrections are kept per account. They are not combined with other users' data to build shared profiles.
• The ranking runs in India on Indo Mail servers. It uses rules and your own corrections; no learned model is used for it. If a learned model is ever used, it will be trained on signals only, not on message text, and not on mail.

7. No engagement feeds

Indo Mail has no endless feed, no autoplay stream, no "you may like" content and no streaks or badges that pull you back. Notifications are sent only for new mail you chose to be told about. We do not measure success by time spent in the app. We measure it by how quickly you can read, reply and get on with your day.

8. Your controls

• Switch inbox tabs on or off in Settings → Inbox, and Important marking, nudges and suggested replies in Settings → Indo Mail AI.
• Clear suggested contacts or remove one address from suggestions.
• Turn off push notifications for the app, or per device.
• Use "Why this ad" and the hide and report choices on advertisements as they roll out, or write to ads@indoemail.in.
• Move to a paid plan to remove ads altogether.
• Ask us what is used to rank your content, or to correct or delete data used for suggestions, by writing to privacy@indoemail.in.
• Complain about an unfair result to grievance@indoemail.in.

9. Fairness and quality

We test any ranking feature across languages and across personal and business accounts, so that mail in Hindi, Bengali, Tamil or Urdu is not ranked below English mail. We review complaints about missed mail and treat a missed important message as a defect. We will not release a ranking feature that hides mail from the user.

We publish the main changes to ranking in our release notes.

10. Contact

Questions: privacy@indoemail.in. Ads: ads@indoemail.in. Complaints: grievance@indoemail.in.

This document is governed by the laws of India.