vantiss @vantiss@treehouse.systems
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PSA: MalwareBytes has put out an update/mea culpa to their article which suggested the gmail/workspaces "smart features" now allowed Gemini to access/train off your mail. It was particularly believable because of how google has acted, and the ways in which they've done things similar to this in the past, but it does not appear to be true

To be clear: This isn't me saying google is good, or that people shouldn't try to move away from gmail or other google products where they're reasonably able to. Rather, I'm posting this in the interest of correcting the misinfo in what became a series of viral posts across a variety of platforms - and people disabling something which that effectively neuters a lot of important gmail features as a result

Boosts encouraged ofc :>

Update November 22. We’ve updated this article after realising we contributed to a perfect storm of misunderstanding around a recent change in the wording and placement of Gmail’s smart features. The settings themselves aren’t new, but the way Google recently rewrote and surfaced them led a lot of people (including us) to believe Gmail content might be used to train Google’s AI models, and that users were being opted in automatically. After taking a closer look at Google’s documentation and reviewing other reporting, that doesn’t appear to be the case. Gmail does scan email content to power its own “smart features,” such as spam filtering, categorisation, and writing suggestions. But this is part of how Gmail normally works and isn’t the same as training Google’s generative AI models. Google also maintains that these feature settings are opt-in rather than opt-out, although users’ experiences seem to vary depending on when and how the new wording appeared. It’s easy to see where the confusion came from. Google’s updated language around “smart features” is vague, and the term “smart” often implies AI—especially at a time when Gemini is being integrated into other parts of Google’s products. When the new wording started appearing for some users without much explanation, many assumed it signalled a broader shift. We’ve revised this article to reflect what we can confirm from Google’s documentation, as it’s always been our aim to give readers accurate, helpful guidance.
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