Welcome to another edition of Let's talk tech Thursday, the newsletter that buys you breakfast after it crashes on your couch.

It's a bit of a dour week for the newsletter, as we explore another example of big tech shirking privacy responsibilities, and the US government failing to stick up for consumer rights.

It's not all bad though. The world has a new favourite Operating System (yes, of course you have a favourite operating system) and the robots definitely aren't to blame for the summer's sporting errors.

Let's dig in...

Top Stories

Google Gemini can now read your WhatsApp chats without you knowing

Summary

As of this month, Google Gemini can access apps like WhatsApp on Android devices automatically, even if users have certain settings switched off. This has caused a lot of concern across the board, as it raise a number of privacy issues.

So what?

Remember back in May, when we covered Microsoft Recall and how it was a terrible idea? And then later that same month, we checked in again because messaging app Signal agreed with people saying that Microsoft being able to read everyone's messages was a bad idea and so they'd blocked Recall from taking screenshots of the app?

Well it seems Google didn't want to miss out on the privacy-stealing fun, and have jumped on the "we can read all your messages without you knowing" bandwagon.

The latest version of Gemini can now "help you better get things done" when it comes to organising your life. It does this by giving itself access to your messages - apparently all of them, across all your apps. And in so doing, it uploads the contents of those messages to its servers in order to better train the upcoming Gemini models.

I've said this before, I personally have a low threshold for giving up my privacy for a little more convinience. Sure Google, have my voice data. If it means I can yell at a smart speaker instead of getting out of bed to turn my lights off, as far as I'm concerned I'm winning. But that's a personal decision that affects pretty much just me.

But just as with Microsoft Recall, when Google starts doing things like reading WhatsApp messages, we're into a different ball game. Now you're not just taking my words, but the thoughts of other people. People whose explicit consent to upload their words to an LLM I do not have.

In fact I think it's worse than Microsoft Recall. Because even when you've apparently turned off most of the features of Gemini, there's still other switches you have to flick in order to stop Google harvesting the data. There's two sets of consent now that haven't been explicitly recieved.

If you're using Gemini and you're worried, it turns out you can actually stop all of this. The article has more details, but it's yet another wake up call that even in a post-GDPR world, data privacy isn't a given from big tech.

A ‘click-to-cancel’ rule, intended to make canceling subscriptions easier, is blocked

Summary

Over in the States, a new rule to make canceling subscriptions easier was stopped by a court just before it began. The court said the agency did not follow proper steps because it did not fully study the rule’s economic impact. It's not likely that this issue will be revisited until a court case involving Amazon Prime goes to trial next year.

So what?

Have you ever tried to cancel something like Amazon Prime? Were you successful? How many screens did you have to click through in order to do it? Be honest, did you get bored and just convince yourself that £80 a year for free delivery and a streaming service with maybe 2 shows that you like was actually a good deal?

Well, as part of a raft of consumer protection legislation, the Federal Trade Commission was set to implement a "click-to-cancel" law which would have made all that a thing of the past.

Natually, businesses didn't like this, and banded together to make the case that this would have a significant impact on the US economy. As per US law, if a rule results in a greater than $100 million impact to the economy, then a preliminary regulatory analysis needs to be performed. The businesses won, and because the FTC had failed to do this, the law has now been vacated.

Would it have made a difference to us in the UK anyway? It's hard to say. Technically, there is already a piece of EU-legislation that requires "cancellation to be as simple as sign-up". But that doesn't seem to have made a difference for our European cousins.

Either way, it's a blow for consumer rights.

Got anything else to read?

Windows 11 has finally overtaken Windows 10 as the most used desktop OS

Windows 11 is now the most used desktop operating system, surpassing Windows 10 with 52% market share (compared to Windows 10's 45%). 11 has had one of the slowest adoption rates of any Windows Operating System, due in large part to strict hardware requirements that many devices just don't meet. Support for Windows 10 ends in October though, so I suspect we'll see this number tick up gradually as we get through the summer.

'Human error' - Wimbledon sorry over missed line calls

A couple of weeks ago, we saw that Wimbledon was going to do away with human line callers, in favour of AI powered cameras. Well the first major issue with this new system has been highlighted, in a singles match between Anastasia Pavlyuchenkovan and Sonay Kartal. Pavlyuchenkovan lost a crucial point as she left a ball going out, only for the system to not call it.

It turns out, it wasn't the system's fault - as Wimbledon officials have been quick to point out. The AI system itself is flawless, we're assured. So long as it's switched on...

Hope you're all enjoying the slightly cooler weather, and with it the ability to moan about how "that was our summer been and gone".

I'll see you next week for more tech-based news musings.

Will