this post was submitted on 15 Feb 2025
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[–] [email protected] 71 points 1 week ago (6 children)

EU citizen here. The first link redirects to the Gemini front page for me. Tried with a trailing slash, that gives a 404. Second one confirms there is no Gemini activity to delete. Never did use Gemini. I guess this means they didn't automatically onboard EU folk...?

I really should delete my Google account, since all I use it for is a Gmail account for whenever I need to enter an email for anything.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 week ago

Yep. Seems like I couldn't even turn it on if I wanted to. They won't even admit that such things exist.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 week ago

Same here from the UK. I'm guessing it just because we've not used Gemini yet?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago

I think this means you haven't used Gemini yet and therefore not given permission to Gemini to use your data

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago

Just setup a new account with a more privacy focused provider and move your accounts to a new email as you use them.

I still have a Gmail account, but it's never used for new accounts and I don't stay logged into it on my phone or browser. Every time I notice some old account associated with it I'll delete it or move it

It's becoming more and more rare that I need to login

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago

I'm glad we're safe for now but thanks for the warning OP.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago

Hamburger menu, settings, it's right there

[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Is this a regional thing? This isn't on by default on my accounts.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 week ago

It could be dependent on your country’s privacy regulations.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 week ago

Google is the kind of company you can’t really trust with these things. There’s new stuff going on with those settings all the time, so you might want to read through all of the settings every now and then. If you haven’t done that in a while, you’re probably going to find some creepy stuff.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 week ago (1 children)

If you periodically have to turn off checkboxes in products to feel your data is better protected:

  • it’s really not
  • just move to something else

That way you also stop sponsoring said company.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Criticizing is easy, try offering solutions as well. If there are people that use Google's slew of products, what's an alternative they can move to?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 days ago

syncthing and KDE connect do a great job of replacing all kinds of google features.

[–] [email protected] -3 points 1 week ago

At this point, self hosting seems to be the best way to use these sorts of services and still have a semblance of privacy. But I understand that's well outside the scope of less techie users

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 week ago

TY for the share 🙏

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 week ago
[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 week ago

Thanks a lot. 👍

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Mind you, it assumes those settings do anything at all other than make you feel good

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago (3 children)

luckily there are laws that these companies have to abide by

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago

-scoffs in American-

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Oh, gee, they'll get fined a single percent of their monthly revenue, if they get caught.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Up to 4 percent of their global annual revenue if the EU finds out.

Violators of GDPR may be fined up to €20 million, or up to 4% of the annual worldwide turnover of the preceding financial year, whichever is greater.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago

getting caught seems quite likely, but yeah the fines are laughable

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago

It looks like doing the 2nd one automatically does the first one.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago

https://bsky.app/profile/rrookstudio.bsky.social/post/3lfutd6dmz22b

Here's the original (on Bluesky, I belief the original originating was on Instagram...)

[–] [email protected] -2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I really hate posts that say "everyone" but it only affects a handful of people...

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

"Only a handful of people"

You need a Google account for the vast majority of default android installs, ergo, Gemini spying on your android device.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I use Android with a Google account. The links don’t work for me because I never used Gemini.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

I've never used gemini, and I still had to turn it off.

The first link didn't seem to work for me so I clicked the settings on the left hand pane, and clicked "extensions" and it brought me to the page where you can shut it off.