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Comment by walkingthisquai | Hacker News Reader

It's right there in the privacy center. The answer is quite unambiguously yes by the way. (This is for the Gemini app):

"How your data is used Google uses this data, as described in our Privacy Policy, to:

Provide our services Maintain and improve our services Develop new services Personalise our services (learn more) Customise our services Communicate with you Measure performance Protect Google, our users and the public

These uses extend to the generative AI models and other machine-learning technologies powering our services."

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I find that answer ambiguous.

Does "Maintain and improve our services" mean "any private web page you ask Gemini about will be dumped into our training data"?

I've still not seen a solid answer to that from any of the AI labs that use language of that nature.

I don't think there is anything ambiguous about it. How else are they going to "personalize" their services, if they don't consume your personal data?

The parent comment has a point. A layperson (or at least many people not read into this topic) isn't going to read the language in that privacy policy and come to the conclusion that "any private web page you ask Gemini about will be dumped into our training data". The text on Google's privacy page could absolutely be made more explicit.

I'm sceptical a layperson will understand or care what it means that their data will be used in training. If you are concerned about such things this heavily implies you don't want to share your data. Just don't agree to the terms and move on.

If I am looking at a web page that shows me my own API keys for a service in plain text, and I accidentally click the Gemini button while viewing that page, is there a chance that someone in six months time might ask Gemini for an API key for that service and have mine returned to them?

I'd love to get a confident answer to that question.

The wording is intentionally broader than just training. It encompasses training and anything else they want to do with your data in the name of "maintain and improve our services".

Safe to assume they will use your data for pretty much anything they can, including model training.

When you go to the Gemini in Chrome section on the same privacy page it states:

'When you use the Gemini in Chrome feature, Gemini collects and processes page content and the URL from the browser tab you’re viewing by default. Some of the page content Gemini uses might not be visible to you."

I think they're being reasonably explicit about what they're doing.

Note: I'm in the EU so not sure if this is what's shown everywhere else.

Why not assume yes?

lol any answer to “do we use your data” that isn’t “no” is a yes

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