[collingreen]

What constitutes permission? Did we all give full permission (in Google's opinion) without knowing it in the dozens and dozens of pages of Eula and deluge of privacy policy changes? The other comments are valid but irrelevant if Google thinks (rightly or wrongly) that "by using this product you give permission to xyz".

I'm reminded of when Microsoft said you didn't actually buy the Xbox even though you thought you did and they won in court to prevent people from changing or even repairing their own (well, Microsoft's I guess, even though the person paid for it and thought they bought it) machine.

[bArray]

Exactly this. In the pages and pages of terms and conditions, this will likely be covered, plus a lot of these services are opt-out. By not unticking "train on my workspace data" hidden several matrix layers deep, you are probably giving permission by default.