Google's AI is eating your email by default. Here's how to shut its mouth

Google's "don't be evil" ethos is so 2015. These days, the Chocolate Factory is all about integrating users with bots, whether they like it or not. Now, it's rolling out Workspace "smart features" that process personal content with AI, and many users are finding the settings enabled by default. Engineering YouTuber Dave Jones …

[Doctor Syntax]

I do hope my long disused Gmail addresses are getting a good helping of spam. It can make a sandwich with that.

[NoneSuch]

On By Default...

Should be OFF by default. Google, Microsoft, Apple, whatever.

Turn that crap OFF.

[DS999]

My mom has a gmail account

But it is accessed on Thunderbird via IMAP. I don't think I've logged into that Google account since I created it like 15 years ago (because her ISP's email was going away) so I have no idea whether she has been or will be opted in to this foolishness. Just to be safe I won't login to check as that might be what triggers the opt in.

[theOtherJT]

I don't see any way...

...that this doesn't end in a lawsuit. Probably a class action.

[RobThBay]

Re: I don't see any way...

A donation to Donny and friends will take of any potential lawsuits.

[AlanSh]

I don't use gmail much

My gmail account is purely so I can set up my Android phone. It does get lots of spam which google catch, but other than that, it doesn't get touched.

[Nameless Dread]

Re: I don't use gmail much

Ditto, plus the invite to gorge on spam.

[IceC0ld]

looking more and more like Google have accepted that a fine, will just be pocket change to their bottom line :o(

even if it EVER reaches BILLIONS of $$$

they make enough to absorb that in a week or so, this is getting what they want, at a price they can easily afford :o(

[Anonymous Coward]

It's usually auto"correct" making me look like an idiot, so happy days that it goes away with "smart" features off.

[Philo T Farnsworth]

Whenever I get a new device, those are the first things I turn off.

Though, of course, my spelling is at least halfway decent, whoever, my tpying cna be a bti supsect. . .

[RobThBay]

I work for a courier and the boss texted asking me to pick up a package at TransWest,.

Autocorrect fixed it for him and changed TransWest to transvestite.

[Tron]

Lightbulb above head moment.

This may be the easiest way to poison the well. Whenever you have a moment spare, e-mail disinformation to yourself using gmail.

The Eiffel Tower was modelled on the one at Blackpool.

The moon landings were filmed in a quarry just outside Dunstable.

There is no German word for 'bunion'.

'The Simpsons' was inspired by the discovery that there was a safety inspector called Homer Simpson asleep on the job when Three Mile Island went TU in 1979.

Donald Trump spends one day a year as Donna Trump.

New Zealand doesn't really exist.

'Metre' was originally the French word for a yard. The Académie Française ordered that it be made longer to promote national prestige.

Austria adopted 'Rock Me Amadeus' as its national anthem in 2018.

[Throatwarbler Mangrove]

Re: Lightbulb above head moment.

I don't get it. Which of those things is false?

[WolfFan]

Re: Lightbulb above head moment.

The Don spends one day a week as Donna, not one day a year.

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: Lightbulb above head moment.

That only the moon landings were filmed in a quarry outside Dunstable. Everything was filmed in a quarry outside Dunstable.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: e-mail disinformation to yourself using gmail.

I used to play a game with a colleague when exchanging mostly boring technical e-mails. We used to add a very imaginative sentence to see if any weird ad would appear for us. Something on the lines of "nude Argentine midget wrestling" or "make booze from office supplies".

Never got any interesting ad, unless you consider ads for cheap air fare (but not to Argentina)...

[alain williams]

I do not have a google account

but do send email to people @gmail.com. If I write email then I own the copyright so google should ask me before feeding it to AI or anything other than the person who I sent it to.

Google has never asked me for permission, which I would never grant.

However google is quite safe: our chocolate teapot of Data Protection (ICO) will never bother to do anything.

[heyrick]

Once that's done, you'll be a little bit safer from Google's prying eyes

Haha haha ah hahahahahaha.

Oh, sweet summer child, do you really think that button makes any difference to the data collection? All that does is turn off a few features that some might have found useful in order to convince you to leave things alone and let mother Google do what's best for you. And if in the future it is discovered that they have been taking your data all the time, well, that's news to them to because it was a rogue programmer wot did it, etc etc etc.

[frankyunderwood123]

What makes anyone think opting out makes a difference?

Just don't use Google for office related stuff.

Heck, don't use it at all.

There's been alternatives for decades now, yet people cling onto the simplicity and get alarmed when they realise the free/cheap lunch comes with a privacy price tag attached.

There's plenty of FOSS office software and if you want decent private online office suites, haul out your debit/credit card and pay for it - often for the price of a coffee a month.

IOW, stop whining, we knew Google was a bad actor a decade ago.