Gmail and antifeatures

[Mæstro]

As if there were not already enough reasons to avoid Gmail, Google plans to copy its search engine’s bloat and inject it here. The top of the page claims that ‘this content is generated by Google AI’: whether this refers to the audio version of the article, or the article’s text, I cannot say for sure. (How are official Google announcements written by LLM for faith in one’s own product?) Google intends to introduce inbox overviews, much like those which are already given for search queries. Reading comprehension is outright rejected as obsolete in the face of creating a statistically probable list of fast facts. Not a word is said about opting out of this.

I have kept my present inbox since about 12 Ⅻ 20. In this time, I have sent 631 messages, or a message just under once every three days on average, rather like my present average on this board. (Because I delete received messages irregularly after they lose relevance or interest to me, I cannot give comparable figures for messages received.) I keep only one inbox for both professional and personal matters, but most of what I have sent over the years belongs to the former realm. I have never found it hard to keep track of letters. Do I just use email far less than most people? The scenarios which the marketing copy describes are rather remote to me.

[Night Wing]

I have a Gmail email account.

After reading your message and clicking on the link, alas my linux Pale Moon was not allowed to view the article. So I had to open Waterfox to see what this Gemini is all about. I just checked my Gmail.

This will not affect me at all since I have no need to access it. The reason being, I have a "massive" total of........wait for it........two (2) emails in my Gmail Inbox. My Sent folder has nothing in it. My Drafts folder has nothing in it. My Spam folder has nothing in it. My Trash folder has nothing in it. My Purchases folder has nothing in it.

To make this short. I have seven (7) more folders and none of the those folders have anything in them. Since I do not see any "AI Overview", I guess Google is going to give me a pass on this new feature so I will never see it. At least I hope I never see this "AI Overview" bloat.

[Moonchild]

Thankfully, using Epyrus to read my gmail e-mail, I'm not subjected to this AI nonsense.

[Night Wing]

I think this is a concerted effort by Google to "harvest" your personal data. To wit. I think "AI Overview" should be named for what it ACTUALLY is and that is; "Privacy Be Gone".

[Lucio Chiappetti]

I hope but I'm not sure if I would be immune to this privacy invasion.
I route my institutional Gsuite ("enterprise" Gmail ... not sure if it has additional protection in the contract with my institution) to a third provider, and I fetch it from there via fetchmail ... with the idea the only copy is kept locally on my own computer. But while the third provider honours "fetch-and-delete", Gmail moves forwarded mail to a Bin folder ... which I clear daily via IMAP ... but for some 24 hour it remains on their servers.

[jarsealer]

Other than for using other google services, like YouTube, I don't know why anyone would use Gmail for email when there are other providers that don't have AI integrated into their (webmail) inbox (although you can still use a mail client to access your Gmail). Same goes for Proton Mail, they've put AI into their mail service and even have their own LLM called lumo, and also have a whole suite of services (mail, drive, calendar, docs) similar to google suite.

[Moonchild]

I hope but I'm not sure if I would be immune to this privacy invasion.

You aren't. Any e-mail through gmail's services will be scanned by Google. I don't know what the EULA is like for enterprise customers but for plebs it's simple: the free gmail service means your mail contents will be accessed by google services/bots. Don't consider the mail contents private unless you end-to-end encrypt it (e.g. with PGP/GnuPG)

I don't know why anyone would use Gmail for email when there are other providers that don't have AI integrated into their (webmail) inbox

I've migrated almost everything away from my gmail over time, but I keep my Google account for low-priority "quick registration", for youtube, and for my android use.

[Gemmaugr]

I've migrated almost everything away from my gmail over time, but I keep my Google account for low-priority "quick registration", for youtube, and for my android use.

This is the way.

I use multiple emails. One for each of my handles, and/or related to various OpSec.

[Mæstro]

I use multiple emails. One for each of my handles, and/or related to various OpSec.

Posteo offers me two free aliases, so I use two: a pseudonym chosen for a favourite anime character whenever I do not feel like divulging my real name, ie anywhere outside official business or personal correspondence, but I trust the website not to do anything stupid, and another nonsense one for sites which seem more dubious, such that I could delete the alias if it tries to spam me. To date, I have never needed to change either. This way, I can still access everything in my inbox.

I have a "massive" total of........wait for it........two (2) emails in my Gmail Inbox. My Sent folder has nothing in it. My Drafts folder has nothing in it. My Spam folder has nothing in it. My Trash folder has nothing in it. My Purchases folder has nothing in it. To make this short. I have seven (7) more folders and none of the those folders have anything in them.

I want to reach your state. I have currently got 51 emails in my inbox. Most will be deleted whenever I no longer need them; ones I expect to keep for longer are in boldface.

1. Two letters about a talk which I am recording tomorrow, which can be deleted after it has been held and evaluated, so within about a week.
2. Notice about a building inspection on Wednesday, to be deleted after it is completed.
3. Another three letters about another talk for late January, disposal like Item 1.
4. Yet another pair about yet another talk not yet scheduled, etc etc.
5. Twelve rounds of letters with my advisor since the summer, to be deleted after my term ends in end-February except one attesting to disability-related adaptions.
6. Congratulations for winning a contest held by my dictionary. (I asked my $50 prize be donated to the PM project. Had you ever got the money?)
7. An enquiry about an exam which has not yet been scheduled, which might never happen but should fall within this term, to be deleted when the situation is known.
8. A note from my landlord attesting to an important fact, to be kept until I move out end-February.
9. Four rounds of correspondence with local officials to be kept until I leave this city.
10. A ‘trophy’ reporting that people have actually downloaded my master’s thesis for scholarly purposes.
11. Two notes to myself with important information I might need from another computer, one of which has thereby rescued me in an emergency.
12. My friend’s home address.
13. A letter from Freexian confirming I am entitled to free Debian 10 ELTS updates as a private user.
14. Four personal messages from my late aunt (†2024) and one from my grandmother (*1939).
15. Four rounds of discussion with my advisor about procedures relating to my disability, to be kept until I finish study at this university this year.
16. A letter with technical notes about this building’s wireless network, to be kept until I move out.
17. Three letters confirming my matriculation at my current university, ditto, and my acceptance letter.
18. Four letters from professors at my old school congratulating me for my acceptance.
19. An old, settled bit of financial business, which might perhaps be made obsolete in a few months, but should otherwise be kept.

Items up to 13 are from this year or last; the oldest items are from 2023. Together, these make seventeen letters which I expect should still be relevant in a few months, some of which I have kept for years because I have had business with the same institutions since then. If I figure out how to export email, I could stop treating my inbox as an archive and preserve fifteen of them on my hard drive. Only the two notes to myself, by nature, really must stay online, and unless I can find a private online storage space with better upload times than Proton Drive, this is all I have got. I have also got one draft, another important note to myself which I never bothered to send. The dustbin held about 150 messages until I emptied it now; I purge it irregularly. I must still adopt some better habit about what to do with letters I expect to be relevant for months or years, but not for ever.

[frostknight]

Thankfully, using Epyrus to read my gmail e-mail, I'm not subjected to this AI nonsense.

Thankfully I don't use any prism emails.

Disroot, posteo.de and a few other non-standard emails, but beyond that? Nothing much.

They could still be harmful in some ways, the ones I didn't mention I use, but always good to avoid obvious traps like yahoo, google and microsoft

Actually, EDIT: I should be more clear, I just remembered, I do actually have one, but I rarely if ever use it. The only thing i use it for is youtube and nothing else.

I trust google almost as badly as I trust drinking my own urine