You have been automatically OPTED IN to allow Gmail to access all your private messages & attachments to train AI models.
“Feature”
I’m not seeing where any of this gives Google permission to train AI using your data. As far as I can see it’s all about using AI to manage your data, which is a completely different thing. The word “training” appears to originate in Dave Jones’ tweet, not in any of the Google pages being quoted. Is there any confirmation that this is actually happening, and not just a social media panic?
The only option is smart features, on or off. That requires Google to read the email to categorize them and do a lot of basic stuff. It doesn’t let you narrowly have more privacy on specific features. It’s all or nothing, and if you get a lot of emails then it’s hard to turn it off if you already use categories. Google always does all or nothing because they know people need some of it, same with location. It has to be precise location tracking to use things, you can’t just do rough location.
Yes, but the point is that granting Google permission to manage your data by AI is a very different thing from training the AI on your data. You can do all the things you describe without also having the AI train on the data, indeed it’s a hard bit of extra work to train the AI on the data as well.
If the setting isn’t specifically saying that it’s to let them train AI on your data then I’m inclined to believe that’s not what it’s for. They’re very different processes, both technically and legally. I think there’s just some click-baiting going on here with the scary “they’re training on your data!” Accusation, it seems to be baseless.
So you think that they’re not using your data simply because they’re not telling you that they are? Don’t be naive. Since when are these companies asking for permission? I’m not even confident opting out does anything. At this point, your safest bet is to not use their services.
So they are using AI but not in a capacity that would make it learn? Doubt
Yes, exactly. Training an AI is a completely different process from prompting it, it takes orders of magnitude more work and can’t be done on a model that’s currently in use.
It’s not ai specific. It’s literally everything including basic stuff like sorting newsletters into its own category. That’s why I said it’s all or nothing. It’s just called " smart features" and they’ve had it for a decade, long before ai became a thing. But if you decline then you decline everything. That’s how they do it. They make a huge category and if you decline then you decline everything including things that are considered pretty basic.
Not that I’ve seen, no.
I would opt out just in case. I remember using Adobe Acrobat at work and noticed they read every single PDF and generate a few comments about it even when you never asked them to. Meaning they‘re scanning through potentially confidential data. I have no doubts Google will do the same sooner or later.
i probably agreed to ‘smart’ something, long ago for spellcheck and others. they’ve expanded those options a lot. i no longer need google spellcheck. firefox since the chrome went downhill
Wait, wait. You want me to suspend reality and believe that Google isn’t doing anything super shady at all here just because they said they totally aren’t? bro, bro…BRUH!!
If you believe that Google’s just going to brazenly lie about what they’re doing, what’s the point of changing the settings at all then?
In fact, Google is subject to various laws and they’re subject to concerns by big corporate customers, both of which could result in big trouble if they end up flagrantly and wilfully misusing data that’s supposed to be private. So yes, I would tend to believe that if the feature doesn’t say the data is being used for training I tend to believe that. It at least behooves those who claim otherwise to come up with actual evidence of their claims.
Did I miss the part where they link how to opt out?
Edit: Instructions
I just opted out of Gmail
That site is cancer on mobile. Can anyone TLDR this article for me?
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It would’ve been nice if malwarebytes had actually fact checked those steps to turn off smart features for the app on mobile. Because as they are right now, it only works on the desktop version of gmail.com despite what they claim in the steps themselves.
Here’s how to turn it off on iOS:
- Open the gmail app
- Tap on the hamburger menu (top left) and scroll all the way down and tap on “Settings”
- Go to “Data privacy” option in the settings menu (they omitted this step on Malwarebytes)
- Turn off “Smart features”
Google extended their Smart features with AI. It can be disabled in the settings, presumably if you haven’t already.
I visited Gmail earlier today, and it gave me onboarding with information and the choice of enabling or not. I’m in the EU, dunno if that makes a difference.
On the web UI they sneakily slide in the Gemini icon exactly where the settings icon is after about 2 seconds of loading the page which caught me out for the first account I was updating. Really annoying.
I deleted Gmail I won’t go there ever again
What do you use now?
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A lot of bad press on them too though
They have still a long way to go to be worse than google
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I logged into my GMail account for the first time in years due to this (I normally just use it as an IMAP server.) The “smart features” were already turned off.
It would certainly be nice if we could have sources of information about these kinds of privacy issues that didn’t lie their asses off constantly to create hysteria, but I guess that’s too much to ask for.
Glad I have uBlock installed so at least this site didn’t get any ad revenue from me.
It was already on for me I had to disable it. I appreciate the warning.
good thing my gmail is full of spammy bullshit.
I’m honestly kinda surprised that Google is apparently not in fact doing this already and (according to the comments here) continues to not do so.
They don’t give a shit about what the law or terms say. They’ll just do whatever and if caught pay pennies on the dollar in fines.
We’ve seen them do this and win time and time again with the google library project and other actions. All the AI companies are training on any and all data they have access to, laws be damned. It’s the MO for any new venture capital / tech project with unlimited profits if someone gets there first.
It would be par for the course if they just ignored the settings changes when it comes to training their AI on your data, and you’re just turning off your access to the AI features instead.
Does anyone have a good in depth guide on how to de-google? My ultimate goal is to not use Google at all and use Graphene OS on my Pixel
Sucks that they focus solely on google produced phones though.
Right? I hate how there’s like no options for phone OS
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There’s no guide since everyone’s use case is different, and 100% is only obtainable if you avoid all tech. GrapheneOS or buy an iPhone are the best options. I went the grapheneos route, but I still use google play services as I found its the safest way to still get apps for now, and the disconnect from google is still much more than using stock android. I moved email to proton, maps I use OsmAnd.
Oh nice. Can you still install banking/credit card apps with Graphene? I’ve heard it can be a pain in the ass to get around
I don’t use any banking apps, but from what I’ve seen on forums it can be hit or miss depending on the bank. I only use their webpages. If my bank required an app, I’d find a different bank.
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Unfortunately it comes down to luck, you can check this crowd-sourced list to see if your banking app works. Users report whether or not they had (sandboxed) play services installed and what settings they toggled.
You won’t be able to use GPay/Wallet at all due to lack of SafetyNet.
Might be simplest to get the smallest phone you can find for those kind of apps, and then do everything else on grapheneos. Might be hassle carrying two devices but at least one of the phones can be the cheapest thing you can find.
I mean… Just don’t use Google services!?
What kind of guide or in depth are you looking for? It’s a broad field. Google covers a lot.
I for one won’t opt out because the only thing I get is spam and work shit. Go ahead train the AI off spam. The vast majority of emails are spam.
Yeah my gmail is mostly for spam. I dont get any real emails to it.
Glad I never invested into gmail as an email platform. I have gmail only as part of my google accounts.
That‘s the only way to truly get rid of their shenanigans. I started degoogling a while ago. I learned that a faulty spam recognition system at Youtube can ban all your accounts (they know your google alts even when you never linked them) instantly for a comment you posted in a livestream, thinking it‘s spam. That includes your mail accounts and google pay. Just like that. Imagine that, you lose access to your mails, the google app store and your preferred paying method without a warning because you posted the same laughing emote 3 chatters posted before you. It is very dangerous to be too dependent on a single platform so I moved my mail somewhere else. I pretty much only use Youtube regularly now in terms of Google products.
Yeah the only things I have a google account for are YouTube and the play store. And the play store is getting less use now that I have moved to Graphene. So nothing core to my life thankfully. Now if I can get my MS utilization down to that I will be feeling pretty good.
I pretty much only use Microsoft at work so it‘s my employer‘s problem when things go sideways there. But I understand not everyone can make the switch. Too much software and hardware drivers are still pretty much Windows only.
Yeah I’m not looking forward to that part either. I’m working on getting rid of all my services first, but that’s next on the list.
So what you’re saying is that all of Epsteins emails are going to be used to train Gemini? Interesting……
I already disabled all that “smart” crap years ago.
