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   Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Monday, 02-Feb-2026 19:06:22 JST Aral Balkan

   RE: https://mastodon.social/@JulianOliver/115998148761323898

   Wow… Google fined a whopping $68 MILLION DOLLARS for eavesdropping on people’s spoken conversations. That’ll teach them! It going to take Google a whole hour and a half to make that money back. I guess they won’t be pulling shit like this anymore after feeling that sort of pain. We really showed ‘em this time, eh?

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Tuesday, 03-Feb-2026 03:41:56 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • The Autistic Innovator :pri:

     @AutisticInnovator What’s even scarier is that even if they weren’t listening to what you said, they have enough of a realtime view of you from everything you do around the web and off (they also buy data from brokers and brick and mortar stores, etc.), they’d still know.

     While I wouldn’t put it past them to hire cheap labour in far off lands to do this (we have many examples of firms pulling similar Mechanical Turk moves), even without Gemini, they could’ve been using simple speech to text and heuristics.

   • Embed this notice
     The Autistic Innovator :pri: (autisticinnovator@autistics.life)'s status on Tuesday, 03-Feb-2026 03:41:57 JST The Autistic Innovator :pri:

     in reply to

     @aral Oh Google absolutely listens. I have a 2018 Google home max speaker, and back in 2021 I was having a phone conversation on speaker phone while sitting next to it. I said I wanted to monetize my autism blog by selling products to help autistic adults but I didn't know how to do that. The next morning my entire YouTube app feed was nothing but dropshipping and print on demand videos. That did result in me starting The Autistic Innovator though.

     Another time in 2021 I had a mental breakdown next to the speaker, and the next day my YouTube app was all encouraging videos related to what was in the speaker phone conversation. Gemini didn't exist back then, so I think it was an actual human at Google listening to me.

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Tuesday, 03-Feb-2026 03:49:38 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Salmon

     @Salmon Thanks; added a correction.

   • Embed this notice
     Salmon (salmon@social.tchncs.de)'s status on Tuesday, 03-Feb-2026 03:49:39 JST Salmon

     in reply to

     @aral Slight correction from the article: it's a class action lawsuit settlement, not a fine, so no court proof or Gov punishment involved. I still don't trust google not to do eavesdrop though.

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Tuesday, 03-Feb-2026 03:50:34 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Troed Sångberg

     @troed My apologies… so yes, it’s even worse. Not even a slap of the wrist.

   • Embed this notice
     Troed Sångberg (troed@masto.sangberg.se)'s status on Tuesday, 03-Feb-2026 03:50:36 JST Troed Sångberg

     in reply to

     @aral It's a voluntary settlement, not a fine, and Google hasn't been found to do, or admitted to do, what has been claimed.

     https://www.lawcommentary.com/articles/google-agrees-to-68-million-settlement-over-claims-google-assistant-recorded-private-conversations

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Tuesday, 03-Feb-2026 04:00:01 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Troed Sångberg

     @troed Senpai won’t notice you, you don’t have to try so hard.

   • Embed this notice
     Troed Sångberg (troed@masto.sangberg.se)'s status on Tuesday, 03-Feb-2026 04:00:03 JST Troed Sångberg

     in reply to

     @aral Why would there be a slap on the wrist when the allegations aren't proven to be true?

   • Embed this notice
     Dusk to Don :raccoon: (dusk@todon.eu)'s status on Tuesday, 03-Feb-2026 04:01:24 JST Dusk to Don :raccoon:

     in reply to

     @aral

     Well said. Demand our journalists write headlines with “percentage of gross/net profits” or, like you use, “days/hours to recoup”

     Raw “amount paid” is largely meaningless at the scale at which these companies operate