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Comment by jacquesm

4 days ago

If there was a 'simple and obvious' solution to this I'm pretty sure I would have found it. There are no settings in my Google profile that will disable this categorically across all Google products (Mail, Drive, Search, Chat, probably others), and the ones that are there seem to be happily ignored. I don't want more of this shit I want less of it, in fact I want none of it and it is driving me nuts that Google would force this on people, charge them for it and annoy them without ever so much as a 'by your leave'. I was reasonably happy with G-Suite (or whatever they call it today) but all of this crap opens us up to security risks, potential lawsuits and breaks our workflow which we have established over many years. This is not a case of 'random user types in query into Google and is annoyed' but a case of 'whole company is continuously distracted by new and to us utterly useless (and even detrimental) google crap'. Even fixes at the organizational level did not get rid of it and it is getting worse just about every day. It now even offers to mess in conversations and in written text (that we get paid for to write).

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jacquesm

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raffael_de  4 days ago

You certainly have my sympathy. It's just that there are alternatives to Google and ways to block traffic and filter web-site content. That Google is a terrible company is also not exactly news. But hey, maybe you just had to vent - sure, why not. We're all human.

  • jacquesm  4 days ago

    We have a whole workflow around Google's original 'drive' product which is neither quick nor easy to replace. Lots of people around the world collaboratively work on a single document during one-week project stints. This includes video conferencing, transcription, interview sessions, document preparation, proofreading and the processing of feedback and comments from the customers. Single-sign on as well as good basic security are a must. Moving this to another stack of cobbled together applications is possible in theory but a boatload of work and it would most likely compromise security in subtle ways and reduce the quality of the work product.

    This is not just about Google 'search' (I wished it was...).