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Google can now read your WhatsApp messages

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Re: Google can now read your WhatsApp messages

#131

Post by janalsncm »

Hizonner wrote: post #77
jeroenhd wrote: post #47

Google has been working on this since November last year going by the wayback archive of the support page for this feature. I'm not seeing any indication that Gemini can read your messages, though. You can compose messages and start calls, but I can't get it to read me any of my messages. In fact, I can't even get it to send messages to group chats, only to individual contacts. The feature makes a lot of sense, of co…

What Gemini should be able to do with WhatsApp: Exactly and only what any other random app on the phone could do with WhatsApp, assuming that you have enabled that in exactly the way you would have to enable any other random app to do it. Google needs to not be abusing its position as the source of the OS to give its software special privilege to reach inside of third-party apps.

Siri does this, but the processing happens on-device so it stays private. Seems like a nice compromise.

Google has Gemma? So they could also blow Apple out of the water by competing directly there.

Re: Google can now read your WhatsApp messages

#132

Post by HPsquared »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #120
hbn wrote: post #73

People have been clowning on Apple for being behind on the AI stuff and -- while I'd never defend how they promised a bunch of features in 2024, showed them in ads, and sold iPhones based on vaporware, but still haven't shipped most of the features -- I will say, I imagine a lot of the hold-up is because they realized how dangerous it is to start trusting AI with the sensitive data on your phone. It's probably not to…

> but even if there's a 0.0001% chance the AI will send a sensitive image meant for your wife to your boss, you should probably reconsider shipping. That's too low of a probability for Apple to care. The probability that YOU would do it yourself by some random series of accidents is probably orders of magnitude higher than that. Do you really think you're going to send 1,000,000 nudes to your wife without accidentall…

There's a "sensational news story" multiplier.

Re: Google can now read your WhatsApp messages

#133

Post by Fluorescence »

jeroenhd wrote: post #47

Google has been working on this since November last year going by the wayback archive of the support page for this feature. I'm not seeing any indication that Gemini can read your messages, though. You can compose messages and start calls, but I can't get it to read me any of my messages. In fact, I can't even get it to send messages to group chats, only to individual contacts. The feature makes a lot of sense, of co…

"Google's own documentation"... uh oh, first time?!

The first archived version of this page containing the "can't do" list was published Nov 2024. The email is about a change "making it easier" to be rolled out July 2025 so I would not bet someone else's money on this page being up to date. We'll find out I guess.

https://web.archive.org/web/20241107174006/https://support.g...

My normal "Google's own documentation" experience is the other way round - to be told something is possible when it certainly isn't.

Re: Google can now read your WhatsApp messages

#134

Post by [deleted] »

bionhoward wrote: post #81
sega_sai wrote: post #56

The whole situation with Gemini Apps Activity setting is so frustrating. Even if I pay for Gemini Pro, the only way to make sure there will be no human looking at your chats is to set Apps Activity to off, which means you don't have any history for Gemini chats, even for the messages from a minute ago.

It’s absurdly dumb, agreed

[deleted]

Re: Google can now read your WhatsApp messages

#136

Post by kccqzy »

Barbing wrote: post #102
sega_sai wrote: post #56

The whole situation with Gemini Apps Activity setting is so frustrating. Even if I pay for Gemini Pro, the only way to make sure there will be no human looking at your chats is to set Apps Activity to off, which means you don't have any history for Gemini chats, even for the messages from a minute ago.

Reminiscent of their heavy handed approach to disabling watch history on YouTube, even when paying for YouTube Premium. (Google punishes viewers who make themselves less valuable to advertisers by giving them an entirely blank homepage.)

It's not a punishment; it's entirely transactional. You make yourself less valuable to advertisers so you also make yourself less valuable to Google. Therefore Google provides you with fewer features such as a blank homepage.

The era of Google providing costly features to users with no benefit to itself is coming to an end.

Re: Google can now read your WhatsApp messages

#138

Post by II2II »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #120
hbn wrote: post #73

People have been clowning on Apple for being behind on the AI stuff and -- while I'd never defend how they promised a bunch of features in 2024, showed them in ads, and sold iPhones based on vaporware, but still haven't shipped most of the features -- I will say, I imagine a lot of the hold-up is because they realized how dangerous it is to start trusting AI with the sensitive data on your phone. It's probably not to…

> but even if there's a 0.0001% chance the AI will send a sensitive image meant for your wife to your boss, you should probably reconsider shipping. That's too low of a probability for Apple to care. The probability that YOU would do it yourself by some random series of accidents is probably orders of magnitude higher than that. Do you really think you're going to send 1,000,000 nudes to your wife without accidentall…

It's the other way around. The probability is so low that it is incredibly unlikely to happen to any given individual. You would have to be paranoid to worry about it. On the other hand the probability is so high that, when considering the size of Apple's user base, such incidents would happen regularly.

Re: Google can now read your WhatsApp messages

#139

Post by standardUser »

hbn wrote: post #73

People have been clowning on Apple for being behind on the AI stuff and -- while I'd never defend how they promised a bunch of features in 2024, showed them in ads, and sold iPhones based on vaporware, but still haven't shipped most of the features -- I will say, I imagine a lot of the hold-up is because they realized how dangerous it is to start trusting AI with the sensitive data on your phone. It's probably not to…

Behind on AI? Apple was the first to intercept personal communications and create inappropriate synopses of breakup texts for its users.

Re: Google can now read your WhatsApp messages

#140

Post by jajko »

kccqzy wrote: post #82
Hizonner wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What Gemini should be able to do with WhatsApp: Exactly and only what any other random app on the phone could do with WhatsApp, assuming that you have enabled that in exactly the way you would have to enable any other random app to do it. Google needs to not be abusing its position as the source of the OS to give its software special privilege to reach inside of third-party apps.

The line is blurry. Google is positioning Gemini not just as an app, but as a OS level feature. The OS can by definition reach into any third-app app to do anything it wants. I'll give some more examples of OS-level features in case it's not clear: copy/paste is an OS-level feature and it is designed to extract arbitrary text or content from third party apps (copy) and insert them into third party apps (paste); scree…

Its blurry because it was made blurry. It shouldn't be, and any laziness-inducing helper app or product ain't no excuse.

These are basic core (and so far immovable) privacy principles, lets not lose sight of this when we delve into whataboutism.

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