[foob]

your data can be used UNLESS you opt out

It's even more nuanced than that.

Google recently testified in court that they still train on user data after users opt out from training [1]. The loophole is that the opt-out only applies to one organization within Google, but other organizations are still free to train on the data. They may or may not have cleaned up their act given that they're under active investigation, but their recent actions haven't exactly earned them the benefit of the doubt on this topic.

[1] https://www.business-standard.com/technology/tech-news/googl...

[TrainedMonkey]

Another dimension here is that any "we don't train on your data" is useless without a matching data retention policy which deletes your data. Case and point of 23andMe not selling your data until they decided to change that policy.

[Arisaka1]

I'll go ahead and say that, even if there was a method that deletes your data when you request it, nothing stops them from using that data to train the model up until that point, which is "good enough" for them.

[decimalenough]

Google offers a user-configurable retention policy for all data.

https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/10549751

That said, once your data is inside an LLM, you can't really unscramble the omelette.

[elictronic]

Lawsuits and laws seem to work just fine at unscrambling. Once a company has a fiscal interest they seem to change very quickly.

[_cs2017_]

This is incorrect. The data discussed in court is data freely visible on the web, not user data that the users sent to Google.

If the data is sent by a user to sub-unit X of Google, and X promised not to use it for training, it implies that X can share this data with sub-unit Y only if Y also commits not to use the data for training. Breaking this rule would get everyone in huge trouble.

OTOH, when sub-unit X said "We promise not to use data from the public website if the website owner asks us not to", it does not imply another sub-unit Y must follow that commitment.

[Melatonic]

Hopefully this doesn't apply to corporate accounts where they claim to be respecting privacy via contracts

[sheepscreek]

Reading about all the nuances is such a trigger for me. To cover your ass is one thing, to imply one thing in a lay sense and go on to do something contradicting it (in bad faith) is douchebaggery. I am very sad and deeply disappointed at Google for this. This completes their transformation to Evil Corp after repealing the “don’t be evil” clause in their code of conduct[1].

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don't_be_evil

[echelon]

We need to stop giving money and data to hyperscalers.

We need open infrastructure and models.

[Xss3]

People said the same thing about shopping at walmart instead of locally.

[oblio]

Isn't that as toxic? I've read a bunch about Walmart and the whole thing is basically a scam.

They get a ton of tax incentives, subsidies, etc to build shoddy infrastructure that can only be used for big box stores (pretty much), so the end cost for Walmart to build their stores is quite low.

They promise to employ lots of locals, but many of those jobs are intentionally paid so low that they're not actually living wages and employees are intentionally driven to government help (food stamps, etc), and together with other various tax cuts, etc, there's a chance that even their labor costs are basically at break even.

Integrated local stores are better for pretty much everything except having a huge mass to throw around and bully, bribe (pardon me, lobby) and fool (aka persuade aka PR/marketing).

[CamperBob2]

Integrated local stores are better for pretty much everything except for actually having what you want in stock.

There is a reason why rural communities welcome Wal-Mart with open arms. Not such a big deal now that you can mail-order anything more-or-less instantly, but back in the 80s when I was growing up in BFE, Wal-Mart was a godsend.

[kortilla]

This hasn’t changed much. In rural communities there isn’t same day or even over-night Amazon.

It may have shifted where people buy things they can wait for, but for weekly shopping I don’t think it has.

[oblio]

The 80s were 40 years ago, though. Something can outlive its usefulness.

[CamperBob2]

True. A good example being Sears, which should have become Amazon but didn't. Prior to the arrival of Wal-Mart, if you couldn't find something locally (which, again, was true more often than not) your options were to drive 50-150 miles to the nearest large city, or order from the local Sears catalog merchant.

The latter wasn't what most people think of as a Sears store, because the local economy could never have supported such a thing. It was more like a small office with a counter and a stockroom behind it. They didn't keep any inventory, but could order products for pickup in about a week. Pickup, mind you. You still had to drive to town to get your order. As stupid as this sounds, it was 10x worse in person.

So if Wal-Mart didn't exist, it would have had to be invented. It was not (just) a monster that victimized smaller merchants and suppliers, a tax scam, or a plot to exploit the welfare system. It was something that needed to happen, a large gap in the market that eventually got filled.

Nowadays I wouldn't set foot in one, but it was different at the time. I didn't mean to write a long essay stanning for Wal-Mart, but your original post is a bit of a pet peeve.

[s1artibartfast]

Local stores are better in many ways, but not the ones consumers care about: price and convenience.

[kortilla]

You forgot the part where nobody wants to shop at local stores and pay twice as much for 1/4 of the inventory.

Walmart spread so successfully precisely because so many people immediately started shopping there for all of the basics.

[vpShane]

See, these are the things that are most concerning to me. Just because we 'opt out' means nothing, and to what extent with what AI companies.

When I click 'OPT OUT' I mean, 'don't use my data, show me how you're respecting my privacy'