I use Google Docs like a chaos gremlin: constantly and with a nihilistic approach to organization and labeling. I’d guess that 75% of my Google Drive is items called “Untitled.” I start new text documents all the time — whenever I want to take notes during a phone call, start drafting an article, jot down half a thought, or just copy down some text or a link I want to save to look at later.
The result is a ton of half-written docs, sometimes completely blank or with just a few words — probably never to be reopened and most of which I never share. But a lot of work-related documents, I do end up sharing — with editors or other colleagues. I generally have done so by adjusting the “share” settings to make it so that anyone with the link can open the doc.
That’s why I was alarmed when it was revealed that Google had been using “publicly available” Google Docs to train its artificial intelligence. Did this include my stuff?
Google Docs sharing has two main options: You can add either individual people’s email addresses so that only those people can open the doc, or you can set it so that anyone with the link can open it. (There’s a third option for the enterprise edition, where you can share it with anyone inside your company.)
Did using the option to share with anyone who has the link mean that it was “publicly available”? Yikes?! Help!!!
Katie Notopoulos / Business Insider
Thankfully, that’s not the case. A representative for Google confirmed to Business Insider that simply changing the share settings to “anyone with the link” did not mean that a document was “public” and would be used for AI training.
To be “publicly available,” that document would need to be posted on a website or shared on social media. Basically, some kind of web crawler would need to be able to find it. That can’t happen with a file just emailed back and forth between two people — like if you send your friend a link over Gmail, for instance, Google said.
For example, a Google Doc posted online like this.
Phew. So, for now, unless you’re tweeting out links to your spreadsheets, your Google Docs were probably not used for any AI training or considered otherwise to be “publicly available.”
