For decades, users suspected that Google was listening in on conversations through their smartphones, oftentimes serving ads for products that users spoke about in casual conversation but didn’t actually search for online. While no wrongdoing has been admitted or found, the suspicions are gaining new attention as Google has agreed — citing the “uncertainty, risk, expense, inconvenience, and distraction” involved — to settle a years-long illicit eavesdropping case for a cool $68 million.
The lawsuit
The class action lawsuit, which was filed all the way back in July 2019, alleged that any Google and/or Android devices with Google Assistant hotword detection enabled both recorded and transmitted anything it heard — including conversations — back to Google’s servers without users’ knowledge.
If you just want to kick Google out of your conversations, it’s easy to pull the plug.
A hotword is a phrase you can use to invoke the assistant on your smart devices without touching or otherwise interacting with them. To see if hotword detection is active on your phone, try this quick trick: Android users can say “OK, Google” or “Hey, Google” to bring up the virtual assistant, while iPhone users can say, “Hey, Siri” to invoke the Apple assistant. If your phone immediately lights up and starts to listen to your commands, then your phone could be spying on you.
Before jumping to conclusions, it’s important to note that hotword detection is only supposed to listen for those specific “Hey” or “OK” commands before actively capturing data to answer your query. The lawsuit, however, claims that Google and Android devices recorded data without invoking a hotword.
While the lawsuit specifically alleges Google Assistant is the big offender, Google has since abandoned that service for Gemini, its in-house AI. But Gemini works exactly like Google Assistant, letting users summon the service on an Android device with the same “Hey, Google” or “OK, Google” command. In other words, it has the capability to enable listening of the same kind.
Google has a whole eavesdropping ecosystem
The tricky part about Google Assistant — and now Google Gemini — is that it’s embedded in a wide range of devices. Hotword detection can be enabled on most Android handsets, including Samsung Galaxy phones and Google Pixel phones. For Android fans, that means you carry Google’s listening software in your pocket every day, waiting to hear those magic words that give it permission to record what you say.
But, of course, Google isn’t limited to working through your phone. The same service works on Google’s family of smart home products, including those with the Google Home and Google Nest badge. You’ll find it on Android tablets too, as well as Wear OS smartwatches, such as the Google Pixel Watch and Samsung Galaxy Watches.
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It’s everywhere throughout Google’s broad first-party and third-party ecosystem, covering an install base of approximately four billion devices worldwide, giving it access to a massive expanse of data.
How to disable hotword detection on Android devices
Google’s hotword detection is helpful if you like to get information from your device completely hands-free, such as asking for directions to a location, playing a song from your favorite app, or sending a quick text message to your spouse on your way home from work. If you don’t care about these things though, or if you just want to kick Google out of your conversations, it’s easy to pull the plug on hotword detection entirely:
Open the Google app on your Android phone.Tap your profile picture in the top right corner.Then tap “Settings.”In the Settings menu, tap “Gemini.”Then “Talk to Gemini hands-free.”Finally, uncheck the toggles beside “Hey, Google” and “While driving.”
Screenshots by Zach Laidlaw
As for Google Home and Google Nest products, these all come with a physical microphone kill switch on the device. Simply turn the switch off to block microphone access, cutting off conversations for good.
The settlement
Per the terms of the settlement, Google has agreed to pay $68 million to users affected from May 18, 2016, to December 16, 2022, pending preliminary approval by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. If you believe the settlement applies to your use of Google products, you could be eligible for compensation up to $56 per device, with owners of first-party Google products more likely to receive a payout. To be considered, you must fill out a valid claim form, which at this time isn’t yet available.
Notably, Google isn’t the only company that has been accused of spying on users. Apple also recently settled a similar class action lawsuit for $95 million over Siri’s listening capabilities.
The lesson to take from this is that Big Tech is finally getting a firsthand look at what’s at stake in invading users’ privacy. How much improvement awaits us remains to be seen.
Tech, Google, Big tech, Hotword
