This is a ridiculous article.
There is a setting that lets Gemini learn from your data. This is not a setting to control whether Gemini can access your messages at all. Switching that setting off is not saying no to letting it control your messages and calls. It’s saying no to letting it learn from them. There is another setting you can use to disable access entirely.
I got the notification from Google about that and that made me think that they really are now a bunch of assholes with a top big joint monopoly with Apple.
The notification indeed says that even if you turned everything off, they will allow themselves in your messages, especially WhatsApp messages that are not normally part of Google or Android.
And even if it looks like that the option to disable that exist, they don't tell you about that in the notification. It looks like that you have no choice.
To be clear, what I mean by that is that they only say:
If you don’t want to use these features, you can turn them off in the Apps settings page.
But what it means "in the Apps" settings page? Does it means a settings in each individual app that my prostitute itself to Gemini?and if yes, which exact apps should I go to, to do this manual process that I don't asked for?
> Gemini now has a second set of toggles buried in its settings menu. You can go to Profile → Apps inside the Gemini app and manually disable access to Phone, Messages, WhatsApp, or Utilities. But these are turned on by default, even if you’ve disabled tracking in the past.
i strongly disagree with p1anecrazy original claim that this was clickbait.
I wouldn't even call that exaggerated whatsoever given these circumstances. If you say no, it still has access to them. the headline in no way claims that there is no way to disable access (likely temporarily) - it just says that if you disabled access before, gemini will still get access now.
> But these are turned on by default, even if you’ve disabled tracking in the past.
I’m surprised by how much this article reads like an opinion piece even though it isn’t.
As generative AI becomes harder to ignore, broader in scope, and even more dominant as a business trend… the people whose jobs are to write about how generative AI affects our lives have just had enough. They’re smart enough to see the writing on the wall, and now they’re trying desperately to transfer that writing onto their pages.
Can they just make my Android (Google) keyboard work? I use three languages, and the dictionaries for the languages other than English are missing basic conjugations. Can Gemini perhaps help me type the next word? I been waiting for years!
Readit News
Some engineer probably finally got a little too much mace on a date and had to accept a “no” for once.
The notification indeed says that even if you turned everything off, they will allow themselves in your messages, especially WhatsApp messages that are not normally part of Google or Android. And even if it looks like that the option to disable that exist, they don't tell you about that in the notification. It looks like that you have no choice.
To be clear, what I mean by that is that they only say: If you don’t want to use these features, you can turn them off in the Apps settings page.
But what it means "in the Apps" settings page? Does it means a settings in each individual app that my prostitute itself to Gemini?and if yes, which exact apps should I go to, to do this manual process that I don't asked for?
> Gemini now has a second set of toggles buried in its settings menu. You can go to Profile → Apps inside the Gemini app and manually disable access to Phone, Messages, WhatsApp, or Utilities. But these are turned on by default, even if you’ve disabled tracking in the past.
I wouldn't even call that exaggerated whatsoever given these circumstances. If you say no, it still has access to them. the headline in no way claims that there is no way to disable access (likely temporarily) - it just says that if you disabled access before, gemini will still get access now.
> But these are turned on by default, even if you’ve disabled tracking in the past.
As generative AI becomes harder to ignore, broader in scope, and even more dominant as a business trend… the people whose jobs are to write about how generative AI affects our lives have just had enough. They’re smart enough to see the writing on the wall, and now they’re trying desperately to transfer that writing onto their pages.
This is one more good reason to never sign in on your android phone.
It's not as good as using graphene, but it's easier, less work, and you can't brick your phone.
The drawback, of course, is that you can't use your map, youtube or gmail account since signing in in any of those logs in the entire device.
But with microg, fdroid and aurora, it's very practical.
That seems even easier to do and also lets you continue using the actually useful google products.
That will only work until Google makes it impossible to uninstall.
Tricky little buggar that one.
Still easier to avoid than rooting, but easy to get wrong by mistake.