A few weeks ago, I explicitly disabled it everywhere I could find within account.google.com and I’ve not used anything gemini since. Now I get this email and find it enabled on my devices.
By default Gemini has permissions to access everything on screen, view your contacts/messages, and can be used from the lockscreen…
I’m not all that surprised; but I’m still annoyed. Especially with the opt-out of data collection/access after it’s been given access to everything.
I strongly suspect the Gemini team is trying to artificially inflate the usage statistics for it by opting people in without their consent and requiring you to replace assistant with Gemini in order to access popular tools like image gen.
It’s likely that in a few months they’ll get exposed, probably not even get a slap on the wrist for it, and go back to their shady business practices.
Sounds about right.
It may inflate the numbers for now, but overall I think it’s just going to have a negative impact. I may have decided to play with it at somepoint, I’m just somewhere between disinterested and distrusting of the tech. Now that it’s been shoved down my throat though, I adamantly REFUSE to touch Gemini. Installing it on my devices and giving it all my data without consent is absurd overreach and should be a felony.