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Gmail can read your emails and attachments to train its AI, unless you opt out

⁨392⁩ ⁨likes⁩

Submitted ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨m3t00@lemmy.world⁩ to ⁨technology@lemmy.world⁩

https://www.malwarebytes.com/blog/news/2025/11/gmail-is-reading-your-emails-and-attachments-to-train-its-ai-unless-you-turn-it-off

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Comments

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  • TheFeatureCreature@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    So glad I switched email and calender services years ago.

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  • thfi@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Remember, Google is not alone: Image

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    • jellygoose@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Can’t wait to see what their dogshit AI will output after being trained on all the LinkedIn lunatics

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  • sbv@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    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.

    lol

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    • m3t00@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      eh, who reads fine print. they do it anyway. feel good switch. yah! ai wrote the correction

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  • FaceDeer@fedia.io ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    I have yet to see any of these news sites show evidence that this setting is for allowing training with your data. That's not what the setting itself says, it seems like this is just a panicked ripple of clickbait titles sweeping rapidly across social media on a wave of AI dopamine.

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    • Passerby6497@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Because if there’s one thing we know about AI companies is they definitely tell you what they’re planning on using to train their data.

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      • FaceDeer@fedia.io ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        You are being sarcastic but this is indeed the case. Especially for companies like Google, which are concerned about being sued or dumped by major corporations that very much don't want their data to be used for training without permission.

        There's a bit of a free-for-all with published data these days, but private data is another matter.

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    • unpossum@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Careful. We don’t do rationality around AI here.

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  • Kissaki@feddit.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    I opened GMail and it specifically asked me to give consent in a descriptive/onboarding popover. I’m in EU, it may be different elsewhere (title and article about US?).

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  • Fmstrat@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    How to “opt out”:

    • Open Gmail desktop in browser
    • Settings icon
    • View all settings
    • General tab
    • Unchecked Turn on smart features in Gmail, Chat, and Meet
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    • buddascrayon@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      I think it’s cute how everyone thinks that just by clicking the little opt-out button they’re actually going to magically not have already fed your entire email backlog into their massive AI database. 😂

      But hey, scouts honor, if you click that opt-out button they promise never to use any of your new emails in their constant information scape of your life.

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      • Fmstrat@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        You’re probably right, but I figured if I can save some people from reading a “there’s no readon this is 12 screens long” article I would.

        FWIW I dont use Gmail at all anyway.

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    • Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Mine was already off and I don’t remember turning it off. I’m gonna assume it does nothing.

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  • tym@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    The age of accelerated enshitification is upon us (has been for a minute)

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    • woelkchen@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      It’s not really enshittification when “Google reads your mail” has been the entire point since the launch of GMail. Relevant ads, grouping mails into topics, find spam, etc. has always been the selling point of GMail.

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  • Mouselemming@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    I tried this and was no longer able to separate my email into Primary Updates and Promotions, and I started getting pings for every stupid ad. So I think I’ll start sending weird emails to myself; “teach your kids (the AI) to talk wrong.”

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    • Chronographs@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      It did the same for me but I took it as an opportunity to wisely unsubscribe from all the crap in my gmail

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      • Mouselemming@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        Yes you are wise. I have a couple gifts ordered from companies who have decided to bombard me with spam, but I need to track the order until it arrives and then I can block them.

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  • Life_inst_bad@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Who would have guessed?

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  • glitchdx@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    If it sees my attachments then all it’s gonna get is a lot of very poorly written smut. Happy to help make the lying machine worse, guys.

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  • Blackmist@feddit.uk ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Like a consent button will stop them doing it anyway. Consent is something for little people. They don’t believe in it.

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  • muusemuuse@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    I think we should stay and teach it to swear. A lot. I want it to casually throw things like “fuckery” and “suck start a shotgun” into business emails.

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  • dukemirage@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Yeah have fun with my newsletters, receipts and spam.

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    • Demdaru@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Like, literally. I have now sent a private email since 2010 xD

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    • BakerBagel@midwest.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Yeah, I only have my gmail accounts for logins to various websites. They will only have LLM generated spam emails to train on from this

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  • Dyskolos@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    I only have one fake google account on an isolated VM with dedicated VPN. For the rare cases it’s unavoidable for something. Whoever actually uses gmail, will get what they pay for.

    But this is probably anti-AI-ragebait anyway.

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    • Scotty_Trees@lemmy.world [bot] ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      wtf is your threat model where you’re using a throwaway gmail in a vm on a vpn? you in iran or something bro? shiiiiiiiiit

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      • Dyskolos@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        Hehe, nah, germany. But I like my privacy and don’t like gifting away my data for free :)

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  • mika_mika@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    I use thunderbird but I don’t know what email server to use!! No outlook because fuck Microsoft too, but my Gmail gotta go too if it’s this blatantly intrusive. Who do I use?? I’m too poor to host myself.

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    • mika_mika@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Who is down voting me for this? I am asking a serious question. 😭

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      • dogs0n@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        Hehe idk, posteo for 1 eur/month?

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    • spazzman6156@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      If you can afford $20/year, that’d be $10 for a domain and $10 for purelymail account, that’s an option.

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  • fdnomad@programming.dev ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    I’ve been paying for fastmail for a few months now, pretty happy with it so far. The masked mails and aliases are great. Havent really used the storage and calender yet

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  • Phegan@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Cool it is being trained on a ton of spam and vendor emails…

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  • fin@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    and that’s how Gemini 3 is made?

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  • m3t00@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    slipped in enabled. def turned off. ai probably gobbles your stuff first when you turn it off.

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  • realitista@lemmus.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Mine were already off.

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