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Comment by colinbartlett | Hacker News Reader

The App Store page addresses my immediate concern with giving Google access to every single thing I type on my phone:

> What Gboard sends to Google:

> When you do a search, Gboard sends your query to Google’s web servers so Google can process your query and send you search results. Gboard also sends anonymous statistics to Google to help us diagnose problems when the app crashes and to let us know which features are used most often.

> What Gboard doesn’t send to Google:

> Everything else. Gboard will remember words you type to help you with spelling or to predict searches you might be interested in, but this data is stored only on your device. This data is not accessible by Google or by any apps other than Gboard.

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So it's like using Google? It also stores data to help with spellcheck and autocorrect like any other keyboard? I'm honestly confused what you're trying to point out.

(edit: my mistake, I thought you were raising privacy concerns, not saying that your concerns were assuaged)

I believe GP was saying that the quoted text made them no longer concerned.

My concerns were indeed assuaged. Generally I am overly cautious but I trust Google enough when they say the data isn't transmitted to them.

Oh, I apologize. I thought you were being critical but I see what you're saying.

What I'd like to know is if anything searched for is tied to my google account. Even if this keyboard doesn't require you to log in, Google can get your user info from any other google app you are logged in to (gmail, maps, etc)...

I'm not sure why you're being downvoted for this. It's one of my concerns, as well. The idea of inviting Google into my text messages, which is a far more private and unfiltered place than my Google searches in a browser, makes me a bit uneasy. The parent's notice that it wasn't transmitting everything one types is helpful. I send a lot of GIFs, so this would only make my workflow faster, but I don't want to have everything I do with a keyboard tied to my Google account because I'm using a keyboard.

It makes me a bit sad to recognize that my first thoughts and reactions to many Google announcements these days—even silly and playful ones—is to start ticking off and formulating potential vectors for identifying and collecting things about me that can be turned into juicy bits for advertisers.

I have to assume that it is. Search results are personalised in the browser, I assume they'll want to do the same here too.

As far as I can tell there is no way to log in to the keyboard, and the searches from the keyboard are not showing up in my search history.

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