A new Gmail update may allow Google to use your private messages and attachments for AI training. Here’s how to turn it off.
I just tried this. Following the instructions in the article I turned off “Smart Features” and Gmail proceeded to put all of my incoming mail into the same folder. Apparently having a separate spam folder is considered a smart feature.
Gross. This is blatantly manipulative.
It even turns off the spellchecker. The fucking SPELLCHECKER is considered a smart feature.
Yep!
It should be illegal to opt people in to this.
Imagine if your bank just opted you in to renting out your mortgaged home.
Abusing your personal data like that should be a crime in basically all jurisdictions.
it probably is illegal in some countries, the problem is google almost always goes by a do it and see if you get in trouble instead of just following laws.
Quitting Gmail is a good way to turn it off.
Never using googol from the beginning is the best way.
gmail has been reading your emails from the beginning and have even been caught when they said they were not. It never ceases to amaze me how stupid people are to have ever even used googol since the beginning.
When did they ever say they weren’t scanning emails for ad words? Pretty sure that was in the April 1st, 2004 announcement. I found this article from then that says:
To finance the service, Google will display advertising links tied to the topics discussed within the e-mails. For instance, an e-mail inquiring about an upcoming concert might include an ad from a ticket agency.
I’ve tried to keep on top of not allowing ai to crawl through my personal data on various services. Google going through my emails is like going through my physical letters, it’s extremely intrusive.
It’s getting tiresome. I think next year I’ll have a go at self hosting my emails. Email is one of the big things I have kept online and the same as everything is linked to it. It’s like your digital address.
Most users are just quietly accepting the significant loss of privacy, especially nowadays as a lot of our lives are online. I don’t believe there will be any pushback from users, governments need to step in but they are seemingly unwilling to.
Eh, selfhosting email seems to be a world of pain.
This has finally pissed me off enough to do the get myself a domain and forward from there to a paid provider thing. Keep your email address and switch out providers at will, not going to the pain of changing out all those emails only to lock myself into another provider… or even your selfhosted one.
Doesn’t seem to hard, but tips from those who have done this welcomed. Also any non slop, non partisan articles on the setup would be great.
I love the idea of being able to make email addresses on the fly and then see who’s giving my address to spammers and just turn off the tap, which I’ve heard of but I’m worried that’s just going to get me spammed randomly.
Well that could be a good thing potentially. Marketers love using AI to compose emails, and all my Gmail account gets are marketing emails. Can’t wait for the snake to start eating its own tail.
So I’m guessing that means they’ve helped themselves to your entire email history already, and this is just going forward, and until they alter the terms again, but they wanted some legal liability protection. Not that I wasn’t expecting them to have already done it, but yuk.
Gmail is going to be mighty disappointed wth the content of my emails: I’ve been using that account for nearly two decades as a backup repository for my digital paintings. The only person that sends email to that address is myself. Best online storage ever.
Is it foodandart@gmail.com? Haha.
Don’t I wish!
No, that is a woman with a food photography business. She got to it before I did. When gmail started I was still using MacOS9 and couldn’t set up an account. She also got the .com site which I was going to use for my own business.
I’m hoping that she lets go of the web address, her site is so old and static it’s inactive and built with Flash, which of course is totally retired by Adobe and dead.
So, I wait.
I don’t know about y’all, but my email consists 95% of confirmation emails and password reset requests. Not saying this isn’t a major privacy violation, just that it doesn’t seem like a good source of data unless the purpose is to make automated emails but with extra steps.
Same here. Almost all my mailbox is purchase orders, bank/credit card transaction messages, and promotional mails. Good luck with that
Well that makes me feel a bit better about sending markov chain generated text to my other e-mail accounts.
Still turning it off though.
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Make sure you look for the 2 different ones. The smart features across platforms is pretty bad.
God dammit I am so sick and tired of this. I’m paying for the extra storage and everything and I still have to deal with this privacy bullshit.
I feel like I’ve been running around chasing these types of things on almost every software I use now.
I don’t seem to have a Workspace setting. I assume that’s because I don’t use Google Workspace or am I missing something hidden?
I had to find that workspace setting in Google Drive. (On desktop) Click on the gear icon, settings, privacy, “manage workspace smart feature settings”.
I’m on the phone, so not sure about desktop. In Settings, there’s General and your account(s). In your account, right under Smart features there should be a Google Workplace Smart features and a Package Tracking below that.
I also don’t use google workspace, and I can access the settings with a button right below the “smart features” option.
