5. Move Sensitive Emails

Turning off Gmail's smart features helps, but for truly private emails, consider using a separate service.

For medical, legal, or financial emails, use a free Proton Mail account. It offers end-to-end encryption and doesn't use AI to scan your emails.

Keep Gmail for newsletters, promotions, and less sensitive messages.

#Google #Email #Privacy #AI

1. The Main Switch

This is the main setting Google shows you, but it's not the only one.

Gmail (Desktop):

⚙️ Settings → See all settings → Smart features and personalization → Uncheck "Turn on smart features in Gmail, Chat, and Meet" → Save Changes.

#Google #Email #Privacy #AI

2. The Hidden Switch

Turning off the first setting isn't enough. Most people stop there.

On the same settings page: Google Workspace smart features → Manage Workspace smart feature settings → Turn off both checkboxes → Save.

Both settings need to be turned off.

#Google #Email #Privacy #AI

Statt Wearables: Google-Forscher messen Körperfett anhand von Smartphone-Fotos

Google zeigt mit Photoscan AI, dass künftig einfache 2D-Bilder ausreichen, um die genaue Verteilung des Fettanteils im Körper darzustellen.

https://www.heise.de/news/Statt-Wearables-Google-Forscher-messen-Koerperfett-anhand-von-Smartphone-Fotos-11421686.html?wt_mc=sm.red.ho.mastodon.mastodon.md_beitraege.md_beitraege&utm_source=mastodon

#Gesundheit #Google #IT #Medizin #Smartphone #Wissenschaft #news

"$10 million buys over 100 million emails, 30 million recorded phone calls"
https://www.theregister.com/ai-and-ml/2026/08/18/google-buys-crashed-airline-spirits-data-at-auction-because-ai/5288962

Convenient. The European Commission can use this data point to estimate an euro amount value for the cross-subsidy that #Microsoft and #Google gave to their own products by training LLMs over customer data. Ought to be useful for the inevitable fine under the #DigitalMarketsAct, which at this rate should run into the tens of billions of euros per year.

#antitrust #EUpolicy #DMA

#book #scifi

Journey Through the Video Game World

#kindle - https://amazon.com/Journey-Through-Video-Game-World-ebook/dp/B00Q96UPRC/
#kobo - https://kobo.com/ca/en/ebook/journey-through-the-video-game-world
#apple - https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/id1448603621
#nook - http://barnesandnoble.com/s/2940156328222
#google - https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Ashad_Mukadam_Journey_Through_the_Video_Game_World?id=1wGcBQAAQBAJ
#scribd - http://scribd.com/book/396870249

#readers get your copy today!

#book #ya #youngadult #youngadulttoadult

Kicking from Beyond the 40

#kindle - https://amazon.com/Kicking-Beyond-40-Ashad-Mukadam-ebook/dp/B07MWH71QV/
#kobo - http://store.kobobooks.com/Search/Query?fcmedia=Book&query=9781386261216
#apple - https://books.apple.com/us/book/kicking-from-beyond-the-40/id1449916008
#nook - http://barnesandnoble.com/s/2940156290420
#google - https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Ashad_Mukadam_Kicking_from_Beyond_the_40?id=wqKkDwAAQBAJ
#scribd - http://
scribd.com/book/397689147

#readers get your copy today!

#book #childrensbook #childrenstreasurehunt #treasurehuntnovel

The Treasure of Milky Lake

#kindle - https://amazon.com/Treasure-Milky-Lake-Ashad-Mukadam-ebook/dp/B078NKFNDQ/
#apple - https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/id1448620464
#google - https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Ashad_Mukadam_The_Treasure_of_Milky_Lake?id=tqGkDwAAQBAJ
#nook - http://barnesandnoble.com/s/2940156218646
#kobo - https://kobo.com/ca/en/ebook/the-treasure-of-milky-lake
#everand - https://www.everand.com/book/396886602/The-Treasure-of-Milky-Lake

#readers get your copy today!

My new book, Xtreme Sabotage, is now available for purchase. If you would like to get the ebook version of it, please click one of the following links:

#google - https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Ashad_Mukadam_Xtreme_Sabotage?id=ILNcEQAAQBAJ
#kindle - https://www.amazon.ca/Xtreme-Sabotage-Ashad-Mukadam-ebook/dp/B0F89MC86P/
#apple - https://books.apple.com/us/book/id6745766765
#nook - https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/x/x?ean=2940181813601
#kobo - https://www.kobo.com/search?query=9798231450350
#everand - https://www.everand.com/book/860336669
#smashwords - https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1768044

#readers get your copy today!

Everything I wrote about #Google plans to flood your #Gmail with political spam in 2022-2023 holds true for their newly announced plan! They never learn.

Lauren's Blog: 13 Jul 2022: Google's Horrible Plan to Flood Your Gmail with Political Garbage

https://lauren.vortex.com/2022/07/13/googles-horrible-plan-to-flood-your-gmail-with-political-garbage

L

Google And Marvell Chip Deal Triggers Massive Stock Surge And Warrants — What Is Happening Behind The Scenes?

Full story 👇

Learn more: https://www.earthinsider.in/2026/08/marvell-google-chip-deal-warrants.html

#EarthInsider #EarthInsiderNews #EINews #Global #WorldNews #BreakingNews #GlobalAffairs #MarvellTechnology #Google #AIChips #Semiconductors #TechNews #NewsAlert #Trending

“ #Google buys crashed airline Spirit’s data at auction, because its #AI needs data.

$10 million buys over 100 million emails, 30 million recorded phone calls, reams of stuff from Teams, Oracle, and SAP”

https://www.theregister.com/ai-and-ml/2026/08/18/google-buys-crashed-airline-spirits-data-at-auction-because-ai/5288962

Social media on trial as $200bn case against Facebook and Instagram begins https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/aug/18/meta-facebook-instagram-trial #Meta #Facebook #Technology #WorldNews #SocialMedia #Media #DigitalMedia #UsNews #Google #Alphabet

RAM has become 5 to 10 times more expensive during the past year. 🤯 ✊🤬🤜💥

https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/ram/memory-prices-climb-500-percent-in-12-months-up-to-10x-the-lowest-ever-tracked-prices-128gb-of-ddr5-now-usd3-399

#RAM #tech #technology #BigTech #IT #AI #ArtificialIntelligence #LLM #LLMs #ML #MachineLearning #GenAI #generativeAI #AIAgent #AISlop #FuckAI #Fuck_AI #enshittification #microslop #microsoft #copilot #meta #google #NVIDIA #amazon #gemini #OpenAI #ChatGPT #anthropic #claude

This is a disgrace. But if you're wondering, "$10 million buys over 100 million emails, 30 million recorded phone calls, reams of stuff from Teams, Oracle, and SAP." Here's hoping your conversations weren't -
racy.

The Register: Google buys crashed airline Spirit’s data at auction, because AI https://www.theregister.com/ai-and-ml/2026/08/18/google-buys-crashed-airline-spirits-data-at-auction-because-ai/5288962 @theregister #Google #privacy #Oracle #Microsoft

This is the text of my national network radio report yesterday regarding #Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg's manifesto regarding the future of AI, along with my discussion of related issues. As always there may have been minor variations from this script as I presented this report live on air. - - -

So yes, Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta formerly Facebook, last week released a rather long, about 6500 words "manifesto" laying out his vision of an AI "future for everyone".

It's important to remember that Mark blew billions on his VR Metaverse idea -- that was everyone would be living in virtual reality much of the time -- he actually renamed the company to Meta for that one. Well Metaverse is so much yesterday now so of course today for Mark like the rest of Big Tech it's all about AI.

Literally every day there are new troubling #AI announcements. #Google just announced that users could remove the visible watermarks from their AI imagery. That's perfect for crooks wanting to spread misinformation or conduct deepfake scams. Google knows that the special tools that try to detect AI imagery aren't used by most people and there's no reason to expect them to. So really this is Google just giving another Big Tech AI finger to society once again.

Which takes us back to Mark. Because Mark's essay actually managed to encapsulate pretty much most of the aspects of AI that most people detest and have no interest in actually using. The AI firms aren't satisfied with you getting sometimes dangerous misinformation from AI Search Overviews or AI chatbots. A very big part now really is AI agents. Big Tech really wants you to let their AI agents do lots of stuff for you, running around websites, making appointments and reservations, answering your email, buying products for you, basically taking over your life. This of course would over time create dependencies on these AI agents so that firms could upsell you to all sorts of paid products just to get through your average day.

The fly in this Big Tech ointment however is that most people have shown little interest in paying for AI at all. And they show even less interest in AI agents, which people quite reasonably don't trust not to mess up their lives massively, especially when the firms generally take no responsibility for the actions their AI agents take on your behalf. And Mark's view of a world of AI agents running your personal life, your family life, your business life, and essentially all other aspects of your life is the kind of nightmare that most people want absolutely nothing to do with, no matter how much the firms who have already lost so much trust try to force this on society.

And this kind of sick dream is not restricted to Zuckerberg. Various Big Tech CEOs seem to routinely spout this kind of nonsense, and many observers suspect that perhaps this flows from childhood infatuation with sci-fi stories promoting fundamentally all powerful Big Tech molding and controlling people's lives, what is usually called "technocracy". In sci-fi stories this is just a plot concept -- it's just fiction after all -- but when you have Big Tech billionaires who really do control so many aspects of society talking about these ideas as goals that they actually want to implement, that's another matter entirely.

Some of these trends have been present for many years. But untold billions, ultimately trillions -- of dollars are being pumped into those widely hated AI data centers by Big Tech. They're desperate to find ways to to make money back on those massive speculative investments, and this combined with lax AI regulation, have created the perfect storm where a lot can go seriously wrong very quickly. And the prescriptions from Mark Zuckerberg and his fellow Big Tech billionaire technocrats are exactly what we DON'T need to improve this situation, that's for sure.

- - -

L

BREAKING: #Google has acknowledged what appears to be a global outage of all Google Home devices

Welcome to the future. -L

🗺️ While visiting Pride #Berlin, I learned how utterly pointless #GoogleMaps Reviews in #Germany are.

⭐ Any place can simply report negative #reviews for defamation or claim the person was never there and have it removed.

Users can then appeal & risk a lawsuit.

When a review is removed the removed count on #Google Maps goes up (🖼️ 1)

1/2

#Reviews #Degoogle #Corporation #Internet #Review #Rating #Online #Maps #Feedback #stupid #company #technology #tech #german #legal #law #defamation

Alt...

Screenshot of a business on Google Maps with "Over 250 reviews removed due to defamation complaints." in the past past 365 days.

Dear EU, don't listen to #Google, kill the cookie banner now!

Alt...

Gru meme: Let's have ONE single cookie setting on browser level. Everyone gets easier privacy. Google objects. We're keeping cookie banners?

🗨️ 👩🏽‍💻 By the way, #mastodon is full of Israelis in all sorts of guises ("Gestalt" is a German word, in case your moronic #US indoctrination #schools haven't enlightened you yet) #education #influencer #trending #topics #manipulation #freedomofspeech

Fight USA's virtual monoculture: There's more to this #world than the monosyllabic nature of dead #machinelanguage
#google

__

WARNING: Massive "account verification" phishing attack from Google servers is in progress (via "googleusercontent.com"). BE CAREFUL.

Google is now a MASSIVE source of phishing attacks from Gmail to non-Gmail addresses, and googleusercontent.com // Google Cloud Platform is a primary source of these and associated malware payload links.

Google doesn't care.

#google #gmail

In push for more horrible misinformation, #Google will let users remove visible #AI watermarks -- Google: "Being Evil Is Fun!"

My eyes hurt after the eclipse

Searches for “eclipse hurt eyes” jumped 170% in the last 24 hours after the eclipse yesterday evening. Ouch. I hope those people didn’t stare too long and that no permanent damage was done. The sky was cloudy where I live, but I still managed to get a photo, even if it was only with myContinue reading

https://odd.blog/2026/08/13/my-eyes-hurt-after-the-eclipse/
#cloud #eclipse #google #photo #Photography #Sun #Web

@jpm

These are the hypocrites "locking down" the play store as if was safer.

Google holds us down, for them.

Get off, away and block google.

#google

HT @bob

#DHS Hunts Down 67-Year-Old #USCitizen Who Criticized Them in Email

The Department of Homeland Security is using a little-known tool to go after its critics.

Hafiz Rashid/ February 3, 2026

"The #Trump administration is targeting #FreeSpeech with a little-known legal tool: #AdministrativeSubpoenas.

"The #WashingtonPost reports that a retired #Philadelphia man, Jon, 67, found himself in the government’s crosshairs after he emailed a lead prosecutor at the Department of Homeland Security, #JosephDernbach, who was handling the deportation case of an #AfghanRefugee, identified as H, asking him to consider that the man’s life was in danger from the #Taliban.

" 'Mr. Dernbach, don’t play Russian roulette with H’s life,' Jon wrote from his #GMail account. 'Err on the side of caution. There’s a reason the US government along with many other governments don’t recognise the Taliban. Apply principles of common sense and decency.'

"Later that day, Jon received an email from #Google notifying him that an administrative subpoena had been sent to them from the Department of Homeland Security 'compelling the release of information related to your Google Account.' Federal agencies can issue such subpoenas without an order from a judge or grand jury, and Google gave Jon, who withheld his last name to protect his family from the government, one week to challenge it.

"Laws are supposed to restrict the use of administrative subpoenas, but DHS has used the tool against dissent protected under the #FirstAmendment to the #Constitution. Jon could not find who in the agency issued the #subpoena, let alone a record of it to show an attorney.

"Days later, DHS agents showed up at Jon’s door. A naturalized U.S. citizen originally from the #UK, Jon was worried about potential violence. The agents showed him a copy of the email and asked to see his side of the story. They didn’t know about the administrative subpoena but said they received orders to interview Jon by #DHS headquarters in Washington, D.C.

"Eventually, the agents agreed that Jon had committed no crimes after he told them he found Dernbach’s email address through a simple Google search. Jon secured pro bono representation by #ACLU attorneys, who argue that the government is violating a statute that limits how administrative subpoenas can be used for '#ImmigrationEnforcement' and that the government targeted Jon for #ProtectedSpeech.

" 'It doesn’t take that much to make people look over their shoulder, to think twice before they speak again,' said Nathan Freed Wessler, one of Jon’s attorneys. 'That’s why these kinds of subpoenas and other actions—the visits—are so pernicious. You don’t have to lock somebody up to make them reticent to make their voice heard. It really doesn’t take much, because the power of the federal government is so overwhelming.'

"Both #Google and #Meta received a record number of subpoenas in the United States during the first half of 2025 as Trump’s second term began, with Google receiving 28,622, a 15 percent increase over the previous six months. Jon was fortunate to have his case picked up by the ACLU and later reported on by a national media outlet. How many others in the U.S. haven’t been so lucky and face legal challenges for exercising their right to free speech?"

Source / listen:
https://newrepublic.com/post/206088/homeland-security-67-year-old-us-citizen-criticized-email

#USPol #GoogleSucks #BigTech #Fascism #DefundDHS #ThoughtPolice #Orwellian #NineteenEightyFour #Authoritarianism #DepartmentOfHomelandInsecurity

RE: https://mastodon.social/@arstechnica/117077742225267429

I wonder what tricks the Tech Bros will pull to silence this Woman? Remember the shit they pulled on the lady who spilled the bean on Meta?

#TechBros #Google #Technology #FreeSpeech #Meta

RE: https://tech.lgbt/@ShadowJonathan/117049317999200326

DON'T USE #GOOGLE

For one of the less crappy ones I would recommend ProtonDrive from Proton for non-self hosted and Nextcloud for self-hosted

Better suggestions are welcome

💙🩷💜 Brett [he/him/any] boosted

Summer Jo ☀️ » 🌐 2026-08-06 / 2026-08-06
@ShadowJonathan@tech.lgbt

PSA: Apparently google trains or indexes their AI on your PRIVATE Google Drive Documents:

https://www.reddit.com/r/IndieDev/comments/1vfwuf5/a_player_found_out_the_actual_name_of_my_games/

(TLDR; Indie dev had their audience ask Google highly specific questions about future content of their game, and it spat out an exact name of an upcoming enemy type. Furthermore it listed scrapped ideas and ideas that *only* existed in their *private* Google Docs.)

BREAKING: #Google appears to be testing forcing you to log in to use search

https://searchengineland.com/google-search-testing-forcing-searchers-to-sign-in-to-get-more-search-results-484223

Which software ecosystems have you been brave and courageous enough **to abandon completely**? Check all that apply

Please boost for #Science

#SocialMedia #Meta #Google #Microsoft #internet #web #apps #Bigtech

RE: https://mathstodon.xyz/@aadmaa2/117027314540705412

It appears that AI has utterly contaminated #Google internal processes, resulting in terrible internal and customer-facing decisions.

@Ayzacoder: Attention if you have a Gmail account:

Google's AI now scans your emails and attachments, bank statements, tax files, medical letters, all of it. It turned on by default, and there's a class-action lawsuit over how.

Here are 5 moves to shut it off, the switch is hidden in two places:

#Google #Email #Privacy #AI

Alt...

CU photo of a smiling man in a suit and tie (Sundar Pichai) next to a large Google mail icon

RE: https://flipboard.com/@thenewsdesk/top-stories-in-tech-lipvqk8vz/-/a-2dQ73TnYRgGWOWYyh0IsmA%3Aa%3A43591897-%2F0

🤡

They stopped curing Cancer to bring us Slop instead.

#Google #Technology

RE: https://mastodon.laurenweinstein.org/@lauren/117015996369101259

Lol, why did they even bother?

#Google #GoogleEarth

Lazarou Monkey Terror 🚀💙🌈 boosted

Lauren Weinstein » 🌐 2026-07-31
@lauren@mastodon.laurenweinstein.org

[It lasted one day. WHAT HAPPENED TO GOOGLE'S TRUST AND SAFETY TEAM?]

BREAKING: Google WITHDRAWS new Google Earth AI imagery feature (for now) after blowback

Who’d a thunk it?

Google Earth’s AI deepfake tool only lasted one day
#AI #Google #tech
https://www.theverge.com/tech/973943/google-earth-ai-image-generation-deepfake-tool

RE: https://mastodon.social/@QasimRashid/117015944263129844

#Facebook #Meta #Xitter are NOT neutral platforms. they are all heavily curated PUBLICATIONS; like the miscellanea albums popular in the early 20th century.

it’s clear the #FAANG of yore are publishing companies when you look at the heavily curated news feeds from #Google #Apple #Microsoft and shopping catalog from #Amazon.

let’s stop pretending these companies are the internet or even gateways to the free flow of information. they aren't.

#techbros are publishers ―and shitty ones at that.

Lazarou Monkey Terror 🚀💙🌈 boosted

Qasim Rashid, Esq. » 🌐 2026-07-31
@QasimRashid@mastodon.social

Meta has entered a formal AI partnership with Newsmax—the right-wing propaganda outlet fined $67 million for election denialism. Election-denying, anti-Muslim, anti-woman, anti-democracy "news" now feeds directly into Meta's apps and devices, reaching hundreds of millions of users.

Another reminder to support independent media with your time and dollars. My human rights platform has no paywall and we're expanding fast.

More in today's article.

https://www.qasimrashid.com/p/corporate-media-is-not-failingit-a9b