A few weeks ago, I explicitly disabled it everywhere I could find within account.google.com and I’ve not used anything gemini since. Now I get this email and find it enabled on my devices.
By default Gemini has permissions to access everything on screen, view your contacts/messages, and can be used from the lockscreen…
I’m not all that surprised; but I’m still annoyed. Especially with the opt-out of data collection/access after it’s been given access to everything.
I strongly suspect the Gemini team is trying to artificially inflate the usage statistics for it by opting people in without their consent and requiring you to replace assistant with Gemini in order to access popular tools like image gen.
It’s likely that in a few months they’ll get exposed, probably not even get a slap on the wrist for it, and go back to their shady business practices.