> About DMA & your linked services<p>> The Digital Markets Act (DMA) is a European Union (EU) law that took effect on March 6, 2024. As a result of Article 5(2) of the DMA, in the EU, Google offers you the choice to link certain Google services.<p>> Those Google services include:<p><pre><code> Search
YouTube
Ad services
Google Play
Chrome
Google Shopping
Google Maps
</code></pre>
> You can choose to link all these services, choose to have none of these services linked, or choose which of these individual services you want to link.<p><a href="https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/14202510?hl=en" rel="nofollow">https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/14202510?hl=en</a><p>So at least European users will be able to get personalized search and photos results without also having to share that data for personalized ads.
PSA: Getting out of Google Photos is both easy and super rewarding if you can run Immich and use Google Takeout. It’s also better than Google Photos.<p><a href="https://jaisenmathai.com/articles/my-ridiculously-robust-photo-management-system-immich-edition/" rel="nofollow">https://jaisenmathai.com/articles/my-ridiculously-robust-pho...</a>
I haven't found setting up Immich to be super easy. But I have a special setup at home (Windows Server with minikube). I've been wanting to try it for some time though.<p>Maybe I should rope some NAS for just the Immich setup.
Windows Server with minikube seems like an unusual combination. I am guessing you would have a better experience self-hosting stuff with Linux (Debian) & Docker. Running Immich on that is fairly painless. Once you're familiar with that, then decide if something like k8s is right for you. Unless you're already happy with your minikube setup for other apps, and there was something specific you ran into with Immich?
I tried Google Takeout but with 900GB of photos is almost impossible to download.
Immich is fantastic.
Does Takeout work if you have say 1K or maybe 2K photos?
takeout rarely works. Usually fails partway through the export.
Export to google drive, use rclone to copy it out of google drive. Much, much more robust.<p>The multi-day wait while they prepare the takeout for download, though... I have forgotten about more takeout exports than I have actually downloaded.
Not my experience at all. As part of my job, I’ve used takeout to export the data from hundreds of accounts, with total sizes ranging from <1GB to >500GB, without any issues. I genuinely can’t remember a time that it has failed.
I can relate. I often have to try multiple times with ~800GB of data. I still want to get out though, if only to not reward bad Takeout experience.
I use Immmich plus Tailscale.<p>Chefs kiss
That's on my someday-list. Immich through its rootless-docker configuration impressed me, but I've still gotta get around to figuring how I can provide access to family members. (I mean, I <i>could</i> buy some suitable hardware that isn't my desktop, but prices these days, amirite?)
You don't really need a new homelab, a used mini pc will do just fine. For me Immich idles at 0.1% on consumer CPU consuming less than 3GB of RAM:
- server: 1.40GB
- postgresql: 600MB
- machine learning: 125MB
- valkey: 25MB
This is for around 200k photos and videos. Mounting the thumbnails folder on an SSD should also help with load speed
Immich is not heavy. I bought an old mini pc from a second hand government office supplies website and it runs all my self hosted apps perfect with tons of room to spare.<p>I think the main thing is storage speed matters which is why a mini pc with an ssd runs circles around a raspberry pi running off a microsd card.
I hosted Immich on an 8-year-old Intel NUC. It worked faster than Google Photos locally.
Same. It’s been set and forget for me.
Turn it off here: <a href="https://google.com/search-personalization" rel="nofollow">https://google.com/search-personalization</a>
Given that “don’t be evil” featured prominently in their S-1, does this constitute securities fraud?
"might" === "absolutely will", just for the record.
No. You mean "we are already using, but before you notice..."
Oh absolutely. By the time it becomes "do you accept <terms>?" It's actually "we already did this, can you confirm your consent?"<p>If you say no, the secret is "we already did it".
They didn't allow unlimited cloud photo storage for all those years out of the goodness of their hearts.<p>That was all used as training data.
Since the comments are going to be flooded with people reactively assuming it is straight up directly accessing them, here is the actual qualification:<p>> [they will not use for ads] ... unless you choose to make data from these services available to other Google services that support personalized ads<p>So it is more reasonable than I think most people are assuming.
> unless you choose to make data from these services available to other Google services that support personalized ads<p>I don't know if android has changed in the last 10 years, but my last android phone had constant popups in official google apps begging me to enable all sorts of information sharing right across google's ecosystem. The popups were constant. And it was full of dark patterns making it difficult to say no.<p>Google probably assumes you only see this stuff once. But if you say no, some features didn't work properly and it keeps bugging you.<p>I don't know how or why, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if 90% of gmail users unintentionally opted themselves in to this "choice" before the end of the year.
I believe the "other services" here includes Personal Intelligence, which Google is pushing very hard anytime you use their AI products directly. I would bet we'll see nudges in more and places. Basically, they want to make it happen.<p>To be fair, I see where they're coming from: if they're providing you (what they consider) valuable AI services, they would want to monetize it somehow, because that inference ain't free. And people won't pay for it with their money, because they've trained this generation of Internet users to pay with their attention.<p>I also suspect they have little choice, because they foresee that the old search modality (and with it, their prized cash cow) withering away pretty soon. Personal Intelligence may well be their next big consumer cash cow, and competitors are already swooping in to try to capture that market (especially Apple with its privacy pitch.)
You literally can't do anything useful with Gemini (as a Google Assistant replacement) without granting it access to everything. And I mean that in the most literal sense possible. It doesn't know the weather, the time, it can't play music, nothing.<p>Taken in the most literal sense possible, if you're using Gemini in any capacity today, it's authorized to use your photos to serve you personalized ads.
The most charitable interpretation is that gemini might get your pictures as context by connecting google photos, then comment on the content of said pictures in its output, and then the output is used to personalize ads (like what chatgpt is doing rn). This indirectly uses google photos data to personalize ads so they have to add this rule to their privacy policy.
Even that is a lie, from the formerly Don't Be Evil company. "choose to" != "have to opt out in multiple places not to".
I don’t see how it’s more reasonable. Google constantly nags you to accept terms and conditions to get things to work.<p>Most likely you will agree to share it with “other Google services” just by setting up an Android phone.
> unless you choose to make data from these services available to other Google services that support personalized ads<p>Yeah.. And how do you not do that? What are the steps to not make the data from these services available? Is it now? How can we tell? What are the services that support personalized ads anyway? All of them?
which is /opt out/ - Several opt outs in fact. Which would also disable most of gmail features, in particular spam filtering and categorization.<p>i know because i went through this.
something something boiling the frog
I think that's a much lower bar than you are assuming. It's part of their playbook to tie very basic features and integrations with these more controversial measures -- I believe that "make calendar entries from flight confirmations" is on by default and is part of their "share my data with other services" toggle. "Declining to opt out" could also count to them as choosing to make the data available. etc.
Why the attempt to whitewash Google here?<p>Also, I do not see how it is "reasonable". I find it evil and malicious. They benefit from user's data, get money and don't give anything to those who gave them their data here. That is also selfish from Google.
As jon said, it is a frew service. Someone, somehow needs to pay for the service, bwing through something as bad as ads from your photos.
We as consumers just need to be more comfortable paying a little to have these services. Immich on a vps is not that much
Not defending Google in any way, but… they did give free email, search, and other things.<p>The slight is that they said they wouldn’t and people trusted that would remain true. Then some moral-less, scum sucking, soulless PM convinced enough people they could make money to justify snooping on hundreds of millions of people’s private conversations and enough of those people agreed to make it happen.
If anything I am surprised they haven’t done this till now. When they gave no option to opt out of having our Gemini chats to not be used for training it was clear Google took a turn to be bold and aggressive about using user data. It was the sign to move away
All I can add is that I'm very glad that I've no Google accounts nor use its services even though I've an Android phone.
Yeah, one of my main points of contact was a gmail address for a number of years. I've switched over to giving out an address on a domain I own but it's a huge pain migrating contacts over.<p>I hope the younger folks learn better the lesson to own your nameplate - even if you just end up forwarding message to gmail or what-not for consumption, keeping control of the nameplate gives you the flexibility to shift later on.
> I've switched over to giving out an address on a domain I own<p>Recently some Discord channel started using some other weird "verifier" bot plugin thing and they refuse, claiming my long-time personal domain is "high risk" for no discernible reason.<p>I'm scared of a future where you have to be in the positively good graces of 4-6 email/SSO monopolies to avoid becoming a digital nonperson.
You are also very lucky. There are countries where all mainstream banks (i.e. the ones that can give you the whole range of everyday banking services) require an app from Play Store, with Play Services as a hard dependency to even launch, for online banking.
> Google won’t show you ads based on sensitive categories like race, sexual orientation, religion, or health.<p>Conspicuously absent from the "sensitive categories" is political leanings...
Ente Photos is the best alternative imo. It's super polished, lets you self-host, and is E2EE.
Jokes on them, I don't see ads anymore. I even have ads stripped out of podcasts I listen to.
The Gmail man!<p><a href="https://youtu.be/oR4jTvxPruw?si=CMtmM5_irok8qUBe" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/oR4jTvxPruw?si=CMtmM5_irok8qUBe</a>
Just de-Google yourself and your family. It’s long past time.
They weren't already?!
when gmail launched in 2004, they did indeed target ads based on email content. People did not like it. Apparently in 2017 they ended "the practice." But now, about 10 years later, it's back?<p><a href="https://privacyrights.org/resources-tools/archives/googles-new-email-service-gmail-under-fire-privacy-concerns-possible" rel="nofollow">https://privacyrights.org/resources-tools/archives/googles-n...</a><p><a href="https://www.securityweek.com/google-stops-scanning-gmail-content-ad-targeting/" rel="nofollow">https://www.securityweek.com/google-stops-scanning-gmail-con...</a>
I just assume that everything you put into Google is used for ads.
Google privacy policy is an absolute joke so this is hardly surprising. Pretty much everything gets used for model training. It’s hard to find options that respect your privacy without studying 50 support docs pages. Plus they conflate anonymization with privacy, as if ripping off someone’s data becomes OK as long as you … take their name off em
Good job I never use it then.
I've noticed now that google is cf negative, search might as well be called google billboard. they are admaxxing everything for as much rev as possible. its terrible, and i often use perplexity and chat in lieu of google search. as a matter of fact i find perplexity often produces much better results.
Gmail has already been targeted from day 1!
Advertising is the root of all evil.<p>Driver of overconsumption.<p>Keeping us hooked on social media feeds.<p>Targeting children, making them use addictive products.<p>Making everything more expensive (because we are paying for the ads eventually).<p>Collecting our data.<p>Sometimes allowing malware to be installed on our systems.<p>Frustrating the idea that the best product should win; instread the one with the biggest advertising budget wins.<p>...
I don’t mind the occasional Burma Shave type ad, or this program brought to by Acme Brand Powdered Soap.<p>Anything that stalks, snoops, tracks, profiles, personifies, “shares”, coerces, scams, scans, or sells any of the aforementioned should be illegal and considered with broad definitions. Minimally jail time for destroying generations of culture.
100%<p>That's why I go to a lot of effort to block as much of it as possible for myself and my family, and to some extent, extended family and friends.<p>Advertising is a gross perversion of 'service' and a symptom of Uber-capitalism. It is psychological manipulation.
And ALL THIS SPYING DOESN'T EVEN GIVE YOU BETTER ADS!!<p>When was the last time you saw an ad for anything that matched your interests, let alone made you actually buy something?<p>It seems like such a shallow and dumb targeting mostly based on region and language: If I watch just a couple Russian videos on YouTube but never spoke Russian, I get Russians ads! If I fly to Indonesia but never watched any Indonesian videos ever, I get Indonesian ads!<p>70% of my YouTube views are games, but I only ever see an occasional ad for Eve..
I am extremely surprised, because I thought Google was already doing that.
Here's an idea: Targeted ads against workers of companies who buy digital ads. Drown them in content with influencers showing that digital ads have awful returns, and frankly, only people with small genitals decide to buy campaigns.
But what digital ad-agency will agree to carry those ads? :P
You do realize all companies, including the most "moral" companies advertise - like Apple?
You've gotta be able to actually show me ads before you can target me with ads.
Another reason to throw on the pile of needing to setup a new domain to self-host email on, properly planned with 'alias per login' etc.<p>I'm not sure if the pile is big enough yet to make me do it, but it's getting there.<p>I might have to have two domains, one for critical communications and logins (banking, finances, tax, etc) and another for all those bullshit web sign ups. Ironically, it's the critical one I'd have to setup 9n a centralised SaaS (and therefore prone to such shenanigans as Google is proposing) in order to make sure communications don't get lost. Having said that, my current Google-hosted domain is free, and so it's likely been used for advertising and AI training already.
The implication here is that all your emails in GMail will be thoroughly analysed by LLMs.
I dumped Google years ago because I saw this, among other enshitification, was inevitable.
Never looked back. Life is good.
Friendly reminder when you click a link in a Gmail message, Google's servers also make a separate HTTP request for that link.<p><i>For your safety</i> I'm sure.
targeted ads are fine if they are actually relevant
Source: <a href="https://www.androidauthority.com/google-personal-intelligence-privacy-3727111/" rel="nofollow">https://www.androidauthority.com/google-personal-intelligenc...</a>
All of this so predictable and so disappointing. But there’s nothing to do but accept it.
The enshitification of Google is inevitable.
It went from all the space you ever need for your email to "you are at 93% usage. Upgrade to premium" in just a few years.
Well, if we didn't have corrupt regulators, Google would have been fined out of existence ages ago.<p>That said it will be interesting way of exploitation. If you want to find people who have certain email content, you can serve them ads manipulating them into taking an action. Like buying a scam product / malware.
So? what's the harm? At least I'll see targeted ads; ads that I would actually care about and not random ads. Yeah, these big tech companies track us. It's old now. When the product is free, you are the product. Same old, same old. Tell me something new.
Anyone surprised?<p>Evil has a name. It begins with 'G' and ends with 'oogle'.<p>Hopefully you folks don't share information that is or was critical
to your business or family there. Big Brother may be watching. The
name is also Google.<p>There is so much information you shared there, if you used it, that
can be used for AI sniffing. This is the new future.
As if it did not for all those years.<p>srsly ppl
Google's always done this, it's the entire reason Gmail exists. Now they're just saying it.
Awesome.<p>Most of my photos (hundreds and hundreds of them) from the past week are of shitty untidy black spaghetti network racks that are completely beyond all saving and frankly require the building to be flattened and everything rebuilt from scratch.<p>So if this can help a company find a way to advertise a clean and humane way of solving this problem that doesn't involve me tracking down and deep frying the network engineer that left this unholy mess, then quite frankly I'm all for it any my cash is waiting.
"might"
Now Google says that it has no values, no respect, and no fear.